2 Sweet Pain
by CIlove
Summary: Ginger has been vampire for 10 years. She agrees to the life, but there is one thing missing; love! Its not until she meats a mysterious male in the forest she finds out that love is complicated, even as a vampire, and that her heart can yet easily break
1. Breathtaking, yet mysterious

Chapter 1.

Breathtaking, yet mysterious

I raced through the forest. The road here was narrow and quiet, not many people traveled here.

The wind in my hair was refreshing. I had longed for this feeling in a long time. Of course it wasn't the same as before; it was much, much better. The fresh air in my lungs and the whine as the motorcycle heaved itself faster and faster forward. It was a whole new experience, a whole lot more details to it.

It had been unbelievable enough that Alice at all had given me the Audi a6. Of course I had refused to accept it, it was too much for me to have on my own, so I had made her return it. But I was far over astonished when she had showed me the bike. I fell instantly in love. A Moto Guzzi is told to be one of the most expensive motorcycles you can get your hands on, and far from something my father had ever given me.

I'd somehow never been comfortable in cars, all the iron and safety around me made me feel like I was sitting in a moving, ticking bomb. I had been a bit claustrophobic, but it wasn't a habit I was willing to change, really. Therefore the bikes were a beautiful opportunity, and even though Jacob had hated them, I loved them.

I had covered my skin carefully with first a long leather jacket, might as well drag it out as far as possible now that I'd finally got my own Moto Guzzi. I had to match it, didn't I? The jacket was Bella's. She had refused to tell me where she had it from, but with the glance she sent Edward, I guessed that he had given it to her. I didn't dare to think about why.

Under the jacket I wore one of the tights Rose had given to me, and black, knee-high leather boots. I also wore a pair of black leather gloves. The weather was beautiful; even though some clouds hid the sun I wasn't going to be reckless enough to go out in the open with my skin exposed. But still, there was no reason in being inside on such a beautiful and rare day in Alaska. I obviously wore a helmet on top of it all, even though it was slightly unnecessary. If I managed somehow to lose control of this vehicle it would get a lot more hurt than me. I could practically just drive it into a tree or something if I'd ever wanted to do that. But this bike was far too expensive and vulnerable to do such a thing.

I turned on the gas and made it go even faster. I exhaled slowly. The sound of the forest filled my head with thoughts and longing for home, but I carefully told myself that it was far too late to regret any of that now. You would've guessed that you would forget after 10 years, but the vampire mind worked different than the human.

The burn in my throat screamed up and made me almost turn the bike to follow the deer I'd sensed, but I had already been on a hunt yesterday, and I was determined that nothing would ruin this drive for me. I needed some time off. It didn't seem like my throat had the same idea as me, though.

Another engine suddenly interrupted the quiet noise of the forest. My head spun around to see who was behind me. I didn't believe my own eyes, nose or senses. It was another vampire, only it was a "he". I didn't know about any other vampire males here, besides that one in Tanya's coven and my brothers, and this certainly wasn't any of them. It was a new male.

I slowed down and stopped on the left side of the road. He was about 10-15 miles behind me, but didn't use long to catch up with me. His bike wasn't nearly as fast as mine; it was an old Harley Davidson, but that didn't mean it was ugly or worthless, not nearly. It was one of the most wonderful things that have ever happened in the motorcycle history.

He stopped a few yards ahead of me, and got off the bike. I noticed the curiosity in his movement; no doubt that he had noticed what I was as well. I didn't get off, just grasped the handles more than before. It took me a second to be more careful with my grip; I didn't want to ruin it on its first ride. I wasn't sure why, but I was nervous.

"Hey," he called as he stepped closer and closer to me. His voice was beautiful, dark, clear, mysterious, but most of all: tempting. He seemed to be about my age, maybe 20-22 years old. I breathed heavily through my mouth to gain control of my emotions; 10 years of a dead sexual life had done something to me, no doubt about it, but this was sick. I didn't even know the guy, and just the sound of his voice made my head spin. Weird. As he got even closer I realized one more thing; he was topless.

"Hi," I said, trying to put as much ignorance into my voice as possible. He shouldn't get any ideas.

He stopped about 2 meters away from me, his hand tucked at his helmet. As he pulled it off without any difficulties, my jaw was this close to drop to the floor. I wanted to run away, I didn't want this. It was so pathetic. He was absolutely beautiful. Not Edward-beautiful, but more bad guy-beautiful. His tight chest and slightly muscled stomach had already shortened my breath, now his face was added and the battle was long lost. An earring in silver dangled from his left ear. _Ironical, _I thought to myself. Vampire and silver, the most original of them all.

"Who are you?" he said with a slight smile and bend his head to the left. His face was perfect, but closed somehow. It made you want to keep him speak, trying to understand the wrinkles behind that mysterious set of lips and eyes. His hair was blonde and about as long as his hand. It was perfectly thick enough and he had beautiful waves in it that only made his face look more stunning and even more mystifying. The eyes were beautiful shaped with a pair of dark, not too thick eyebrows that now formed smiling curves as well as a wondering mock over the dark, blood red eyes of his.

On the left shoulder he had a tattoo. It looked to me like a demon or something like that. It had fangs and horns, and some fire were burning in the background. I didn't know that that was possible for vampires. Vampire teeth were the only things strong enough to penetrate the skin. It made me wonder, but of course I hadn't really made much research about the topic.

"I might just want to ask you the same thing? What are you doing here?" It was a threat, but it didn't seem like he noticed.

"That wasn't the answer I was looking for, but sure, if you really want to know; I'm Benjamin Colby, and whom, might I ask, do I have the pleasure of talking to?" his voice was perfectly gentle, and he had an Australian accent that I hadn't noticed before. It suited his voice.

I hesitated, not sure if I should tell him my name, as if it made me more vulnerable. But I shoved that thought aside; I didn't wanted to be impolite.

"My name is Ginny Black," I hadn't taken my family's last name. It didn't make any sense to me; I was still myself, nothing had changed, save my look. I wasn't quite ready to get rid of my past yet. My first name was of different matter. Because of my change in appear I wanted a name that didn't reminded me too much of my old self, so Edward's nickname fitted quite well. Even though I was still Ginger inside, I'd rather use Ginny.

"A name suitable for an angel," he said quietly. Fiercely I ripped off my helmet and jumped off of the bike. I raised one hand to point he directly in the face. How dared he? His eyebrows pulled up in some expression I was too occupied to think about as his eyes examined my face.

"Now, why would you say something like that?" the words didn't fit my set of tone. It had a deadly edge to it. His returning smile was stunning, but still the puzzling look was there, seeming strangely attractive to me. He was so beautiful in a way I found more dangerous than I liked to think about.

"Take it easy," one hand touched my shoulder carefully and a fire shot down my spine in pleasure from the nice gesture. "I'm not making fun of you, or whatever you believe," his Australian accent was really beautiful. Bloody hell, why was I so soft? I shouldn't be charmed like this. It was just wrong. _Focus, Ginny, focus!_

I turned away from him. My eyes were in desperate need of something else to attach them selves to. His appearance only made my head spin.

Right then a car honked and came to a stop right beside us. I didn't believe my own eyes; it was an old Morgan, probably from the early 1950's, more than 70 years old. I was sure those were long gone by now, but clearly one of these vampires had managed to keep this safe. It was beautiful, blood red, with black leather seats and a thick brown belt securely over the hood. This was one of those moments I wanted to cry, it was so beautiful. Astonishing.

"Hey, Minni! Who's your friend?" One of the three vampires in the car shouted at Benjamin. Minni? What an extremely not masculine nickname for a guy like him to have. It was kind of hilarious. The one who had spoken looked like a smug guy. His white, blonde hair was tied up in a tight ponytail.

I tried to kill the giggle that bobbled in my mouth. Benjamin's, Minni's, eyes flickered to me like in astonishment as he heard the sound. His mouth fell open and his face looked stunned for a swift moment before he recovered himself and got back the mysterious look again.

The three vampires in the Morgan, plus Minni, looked completely different, but at the same time just alike. Two sat in the front seats, one older man in control of the steering wheal and one, even younger than Minnie, next to him. The young one had brown straight hair hanging down to his shoulders. In the back seat one man with the ponytail, he looked just about older than Minnie, and half stood, half leaning over the seats of those in the front.

"Her name is Ginny, she lives here with her coven…" he trailed off and looked at me with a questioning look added to his mysterious theme, wanting to know the name of 'my' coven. I took an uninvited inhale through clenched teeth, this caught Minnie's attention. He turned his head slightly to the left, wondering this time. I used less than a second to straighten up and force a mask onto my face.

"The Cullen's," I said, not sure if it was a smart or stupid move to make.

The older man, probably in his 40s when he was changed, looked at me with curious eyes. His pitch-black hair was cut short, else than that he looked surprisingly normal for a vampire. It caught my eye that all of them were bare-chested, but also more masculine than Minni was, even the youngest one. He looked like he was about 15 or something. _A bit too young for a vampire,_ I thought to myself, though it was clearly he was one. Despite his early age I wouldn't like to confront him. His expression somehow hinted of many years as vampire, maybe centuries.

"The Cullen's you say? I've heard about them, never had the pleasure of meeting them, though. I don't seem to recall anyone named Ginny among them. Are you a fresh addition to their already enormous family?" he eyed me with a marvel smile, clearly the leader of this coven. I didn't know if I could call it that, though Minni clearly was a part of them.

"Yes, I am. I'm slightly 10 years old. I don't know what you have heard, but I assure you we want you no harm or trouble, just don't feed on our land!" I tried to sound as fiercely as possible; I wanted these guys to take me serious.

"Yes, yes, sweetie, I've heard of your diet, never believed it for myself though. We have no reason to do so anyway. We have already fed," deep inside I exhaled with a huge relief. I had on experience in dealing with other vampires, just Em if he became too obnoxious, but I didn't count that as the same thing. "But it would, however, be a privilege to meat the rest of your family."

I didn't know what to answer on that one. Would Carlisle sustain it? "Well, I don't really know what to say, sir," I hesitantly stopped speaking and bit my lower lip.

"I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem! My coven is known to be quite reckless and, excuse my choice of words, thickheaded, but I assure you, we are here in a peaceful errand." He spoke slowly as if speaking to a child, and put his hand apologizing on his brother's right hand, the hand of the man holding the wheel. "And I never allow hunting on someone else' territory!"

He eyed me with eyes full of curiosity. It was clear he really wanted this. He also had a ring in his ear, I suddenly noticed. What was with these guys? As I quickly shot a glance on the other two, I could easily detect that they too wore an earring. What a strange coven; bear-chests and earrings, but it hit me that Minni was the only one that had a tattoo. As my eyes again caught the look of him, I had to tighten both my jaw and my fists. He was too tempting to look at; his naked chest screamed for my hands to examine it, and his lips… _No, Ginny! Don't even go there!_

As I turned my eyes onto the man who yet hadn't said anything, the young, pony tailed one who spoke first opened his mouth: "She is rather pretty, isn't she?" he said with a big, smug grin and raised his eyebrows. I snarled through clenched teeth, and my left hand tightened into a fist. I had to restrain myself; it was certain I wasn't the one to win if it came to a fight.

"Yes, she certainly is," the last one said.

"Dai, Rany, behave yourself!" the young one snapped. "As I said; thickheaded." He smiled cheerful to me, as if he had bragged of his brothers, rather than insulted them.

My eyes again flickered to Minni. I'd finally come up with a word for his appearance; it was simply just breathtaking!

5


	2. Acquaintances

2.

Acquaintances 

"Okay," I muttered. I was freaked out enough for one day. That youngster really gave me chills. He seemed utterly old for his age, but yet childish. His manners were splendid, but he didn't seem to have much patient, not by the way he treated his brothers. I might not have been the one with most patients in my family, but still.

"Especially when she is nervous," the oldest one continued. He had an unknown accent I didn't really know where came from. He made the words sound too sharp, and he had a weird set of tone. It was like it danced on the consonants. But not less I wanted to punch his face down in the tarmac. I loathed such comments, and it wasn't like I got too few of them at home either. Emmett could be a real pain in the neck from time to time, but at least I knew him. I wouldn't take insults like this from someone I didn't know. Clearly he had already caught that fact.

* * *

The trip back to the house was long enough. Too many thoughts ran on and on inside my head, and only one thing was occupying them all; Minni! I was so close to ripping my own mind out. It wasn't bearable! A guy shouldn't have had this effect on me. It wasn't like I was 14 and in love for the first time. Technically I was in real love for the first time, but that's nothing to do with it. It shouldn't. And on top of that I was a vampire!

We reached the house by 5 pm. The sky was still bright; the sun didn't seem to ever go down at this time of the year. I missed the winter. In the winter, the sky was always dark. It was relieving not having to hide myself, but somehow the sun was too attractive. I adored it. It might have been because of my human memories.

I stopped 5 seconds before the others, and jumped off the bike to try to get ahead of them. As I ran up the porch stairs to the white house, I threw a glance at the visitors. The Morgan had just driven up in front of the house, and was slowing down to a stop. Minni had already stopped his Harley Davidson, but didn't follow me. He looked peaceful there he sat waiting for his brothers. I forced my eyes the other way. _Concentrate!_

I pushed the door open, turning myself to the first one I met: "Rosalie! Where's Carlisle?" Rose looked up from the book she was reading, which in itself was pretty astonishing. Her expression was startled. With the tone I had used it probably sounded like something bad had happened.

"Ginny! What's wrong?" I told you so.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong, Rose, I just have to speak with Carlisle." Rosalie stared at me with smoldering, golden eyes. Her expression was now someplace between wondering if I had hysterics and amusement. I couldn't obviously see the funny part in this, but I didn't really care. She had heard the car outside and the other bike, I was sure of it, so clearly she must have thought something out herself.

"Okay, nothing's wrong. So who are the others you parked in front of the house, anyway?" I sighed. She could be so annoying sometimes. I didn't have the time to waist on her now. I needed to talk with Carlisle.

"Never mind," I sighed through clenched teeth. I was pretty tense, and that clearly messed with my temper. "Alice! Have you seen Carlisle?" I shouted. She was in the kitchen; doing something I wasn't really interested in knowing more about. She lifted her left hand, either as a gesture or an answer.

"Office," she sang with her high soprano. I thanked her and walked over to Carlisle's door, knocking carefully 3 times.

"Yes, my dear?" Carlisle's doctor voice answered me.

"Carlisle, May I come in?"

"Sure, sure, Ginny. Just come on in." I opened the door and stepped inside so I could close the door behind me. Carlisle was standing over some thick medical books. The pen in his right hand flickered swiftly over the paper as he scrambled down what he had read in his flawless handwrite. The books were enormous, and both had only a few pages left for him to read. I could bet that he had carried those two in just this morning. _Crazy, old vampire!_ I laughed to myself. He sure loved his work. He used a few seconds to finish writing and closed the books. His eyes caught mine, as he was ready to talk to me.

"Now, my daughter, what's the problem?" I hesitated, not sure how I should start. I exhaled once, and started speaking before I could think it through.

"I met some vampires on my ride, and you have to apologize me if I did something wrong, but I told them my name," I stopped, waiting for his first impression of the situation, which I was not sure at all how to continue with.

"Did they react somehow once they heard the name Cullen? Is that why you have come to me?" his voice was calm, not curious or annoyed. I knew Carlisle, and knew he wouldn't be too surprised by anything I told him, but still.

"Yes, they did, but I didn't tell them my name was Cullen, they heard the name when they asked which Coven I came from."

"I see," he said smiling slightly now. I was glad he wasn't angry or anything at me, at least not yet. "And those are the ones outside, am I right?" I nodded once.

"They wanted to meet you, and therefore I showed them the way. They are nomads, so I asked them not to hunt here, just as a precaution, but I don't think they respect me much, so I wouldn't trust it to hold." I finished, twitching my fingers by some stupid reason. It was human, but I was somehow scared out of my good skin. This whole situation was indeed twisted and thick, but I couldn't possibly understand why. Sure, I was in "love by first sight", we had gotten that fact straight, the fact that I was scared to death by it didn't make much sense. Why should I be afraid of anything? I was a vampire! Couldn't I act like one?

"Well, that's just fine. You did right in leading them here. Better being cooperative than starting a conflict, don't you think?" Carlisle smiled a kind smile that almost made me feel a little better. He placed his left hand on my shoulder. "I will go outside to meet them in just a moment. If you'd wait for me outside while I finish, that would be nice."

I nodded and turned slowly to go out of the room again. _Well, that was quick,_ I pointed out to myself. It was true, way too quick. I hesitated. I wanted to talk longer with him. His clear, steady voice was calming, and a distraction was exactly what I needed now.

I turned back, still twitching my fingers as in despair. My hands tightened into fists in an attempt to quiet the movement. It was going on my nerves. Carlisle looked at me, saw that there was still something I needed to speak with him about.

"Is there anything else I can help you with, Ginny?" he asked polite, folding his hands on his back while looking calm at me. I breathed heavily through clenches teeth. I tightened my jaw as hard as I could possibly manage. It didn't hurt as it might have if I had been a human, but that was kind of the point, so I stopped it.

"Well, I'm sort of in a sticky situation," I tried somehow to make it sound worse than it was, but I could still not be sure of how to put my words. I almost laughed at my cheesy choice of words; "sticky situation" wasn't usually something you used about love, but what the hell should you use then?

"Oh, is that right? Then tell me what is wrong." He smiled assuring and I wanted to tell him, wanted to say it out straight: "I've fallen in love with one of them. He is so beautiful; I just want to hold him close! Make it go away!" I wanted to beg before him, make him really cure me somehow, but I was sure it wouldn't help me, just make me feel even more pathetic. "Carlisle? How did you fall in love with Esme? What was it like?" I asked instead, grasping for somehow to make him tell me what I wanted to know, without really knowing what that was myself. The question startled him, but he kept his calm mask.

"Our love was very instant. She was very beautiful, and as I got to know her better everything fell to place. She was the one for me, and that was such a wonderful coincidence. You should get to know that feeling, that even as a vampire someone out there is made for you, and you get to live together for eternity." He looked utterly dreamy as he spoke these words, something that really annoyed me. He should've been acting more grown-up about it.

"But, what if she hadn't wanted you?"

"Well, it would've been extremely painful of course, but that's nothing to talk about. Luckily she wanted me, and for that I'm incredibly grateful. But why are you asking me this? Is there anything you need help for?" I wanted to bite my under lip off. _Don'tsayitdon'tsayitdon'tsayit!_ I screamed inside my head. He shouldn't get to know it. It was none of his business.

I hesitated. I wasn't sure what to do. A part of me wanted so badly for him to help me, but the other part wanted it to be buried as deep in the dirt as possible. And I was far from sure of which part I should be listening to. Nothing made any sense when it came to love. On one hand he was my "father", as close as anything these days anyway, and I needed advice from him, but on the other he was not and I shouldn't need to speak to some imposter of my feelings. That was just wrong. I really made no sense to myself anymore. _Shut up!_ I ordered my thoughts. More of these speculations would make me crazy.

"Oh, just forget it. It was nothing, just being curious again, I guess." I laughed it off.

"Okay, if you're sure there's nothing I can help you with, let us get outside to meet these new nomads." He laughed with me, hugging me to his side as he stepped through the door into the living room. "Yeah, they were pretty excited about meeting you." I tried to answer calmly through my clenched teeth. No way he was getting to know about my secret. Apparently I had a stronger part in me after all, and it was luckily not the eager one. Phew.

* * *

"I'm so glad to finally meet the famous Carlisle Cullen!" the youngster declared. His expression remained calm and smug as he shook Carlisle's hand. Carlisle too kept his expression normal, but greeting somehow.

"Oh, I wouldn't say famous. Surely we have a large family, but no reason in speaking too highly. Welcome!" I stood in the doorway, observing the handshake calmly and with caution watching only them. I knew my thoughts would trail off if I as much as threw a glance at Minni. He was still half sitting, half leaning to his bike, not really interested in anything at the moment, except me. His eyes were at me constantly, and it made me almost go into hysteria. Couldn't he watch someone else for only one second? I needed some time off.

"Ginny, why don't you do inside and fetch Edward for me?" I nodded, not interested in knowing why he; maybe Carlisle wanted to know more about these guys than his eyes could tell him. What did I know? I was only grateful for the opportunity of getting out of _his_ sight.

"Sure," I sighed in relief, and couldn't stop a smile from appearing on my lips. Minni caught it just before I turned around to go inside the house. A sound from behind told me that he had got up from his bike, and was about to follow me inside the house, because the youngster said: "Minni. Easy, brother," in the same calm, but yet amused tone as he had used on his other brothers when they had insulted me. _Brilliant! _I thought to myself. Exactly how obsessed was this guy with me, anyway? I wondered if that Carlisle had spoken of could happen to me. Could I ever find a vampire only for me? I doubted it.

As I stepped inside the door and was about to shout for Edward, I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, Ginny! We didn't get to finish our conversation back there," Minni started, but I cut him off halfway.

"What conversation?" I demanded annoyed. Could he give me a break already? I had only known him for half a day, and I already had got enough of him. Now, that wasn't entirely true, actually. I hadn't got enough of him at all; I wanted his hands on me all the time, I wanted to own that face, I wanted to feel him. I wanted him! But I would never admit that. It was only my instincts talking, and I didn't want to listen to them. But I could feel it just too good.

"Oh, well, I don't know about you, but I was just about asking you about the weather." Why was he so damn charming? What was wrong with me?! His mysterious eyes, his delicate accent. I should kill him! But I tightened my hands into fists and kept my mask.

"Okay," I said, desperately trying to find some clever answer to smash in his face. But nothing came. His hand was still on my left shoulder and a chill ran down my spine, constantly aware of it.

"Edward?" I shouted. I was so tense it was embarrassing. But then something weird happened. When I opened my mouth, Minni grabbed my arms and pushed me towards the wall next to the door. I caught my breath in astonishment. What did he mean with this? He stood only one inch from me, and looked me in the eyes. The scary thing was that I enjoyed ever part of it; he being so close, his chest being bare, his hands on my upper arms. I shook once; the chill was harder now.

He looked weird at me for one second. Then he straightened up, got that mysterious look on his face again.

"You are afraid of me," he said. I was absolutely not, but all I could think about was how his accent only made it sound even better. It was pretty weird, actually. I'd never been a particular fan of any type of accent, but putting that set of tone into his mouth made it fantastic. He was too close. If I'd had a heart, it would've been beating like hell by now, and the red in my cheeks would have given my emotions away a long time ago. Luckily I didn't have that problem. My breath was still faint, though, anxious and longing at the same time. I would have to do something about my lust later. A hunt surely would slow it down a bit. As I thought about it I could feel the stinging in my throat after blood, human blood.

"I'm not afraid of you," I said, but it only sounded like I was denying it, and that wasn't much better.

"Ginny?" Edward suddenly was at my left. His expression was weary as he stared at Minni. Minni stared back into Edward's golden eyes, his expression suddenly furious. I didn't understand anything.

"Eddy," I said in a casual tone, trying to sound like being held up to the wall by some stranger was completely normal. I don't think he bought it.

"Who's your friend?" He said with a strangely polite look on his face. One part of me wanted him to crush Minni's skull in for breaking my personal space in a way like this, while the other part felt a slight need to protect Minni from him. This made no sense at all, but I was utterly thankful that Edward couldn't read my mind. I could at least spare myself from some embarrassment.

By the time I got the time to answer Minni had quickly moved himself away from me and walk out to the others again. I almost whimpered as I noticed he moved away, but stopped breathing for some second to try to keep myself quiet. This was really starting to get on my nerves!

"Benjamin Colby," I said slowly. "Carlisle wanted you to meet our guests." I then said, remembering the reason why I had called for him in the first place.

"Okay," He eyed me suspiciously, but walked out the door to the others. I exhaled heavily. This was going to kill me someday, I was sure of it.

* * *

As I got outside I could already feel the tense atmosphere. Edward eyed all of them with a suspicious gaze, before he shook the youngsters hand. They said their names. The youngsters name was Bjorn. What a strange and unusual name for an American. That was a name you heard mostly in the north of Europe, like Germany and such. But it hit me that they might be from around there; the other guy with the strange accent was clearly not from America, and maybe this boy wasn't either.

"So nice to meet you all. We haven't had much to do with other covens yet, we like to keep our own hunting areas, as you might understand," Bjorn had an amused tone and smiled like he was telling the funniest story he knew to someone dear to him. It was overall annoying. I couldn't stand people being too friendly if I didn't know them. Therefore Minni's behavior was really getting to me, and if he had been someone like Emmett, I'm sure I would have killed him by now. Not that Emmett wasn't annoying, he was just family, and was it one thing I knew, it was that you don't kill your own family. That was a basic rule.

"And it was therefore terribly unfortunate that we should run into your family, Carlisle, I hope you forgive me."

"Forgive you? Why?" Carlisle wrinkled his eyebrows in wondering. He didn't understand why he should forgive them. Neither did I. What had they done? I think Edward was just about to answer Carlisle's question when another voice interrupted him.

"Carlisle, Edward, who're they?" Jasper's voice suddenly appeared behind the red Morgan. He and Esme were back from their hunt. Jasper looked weary, probably considering the atmosphere. Even I could feel it.

"Don't be rude, Jasper!" Esme laughed as she reached out for Carlisle. He caught her in his arms and pushed her to him gently. Their kiss was passionate, but not too private for others to watch, like Emmett and Rosalie's sometimes could be. Those were really annoying.

"Benjamin!" Jasper suddenly said, staring directly at Minni. They both looked just as shocked as all the other of us. Was he serious? Had they met before? I thought about that for a swift second. I didn't know how long either of them had lived, but it was pretty obvious that it had to be before Jasper had joined the family with Alice. That was clear. But when? I had no idea how old Minni was. For all I knew, he could be a thousand years old.

Minni stared at Jasper too, and something had surely changed in his eyes. He looked slightly annoyed.

"Are you joking me?" He laughed out in despair. "Jasper? It's really you, isn't it?" He pursed his lips, and sighed. "Won't you guys ever leave me alone?"

"What are you talking about?" Jasper still had the weary look on his face, but he moved closer to Minni, taking in his face and body on a closer look.

* * *

**OKay so this is my 2nd chapter of my 2nd story. What do you think? Im really shifting in ideas these days, so im not really sure what should come next:P Im open for suggestions, cool to hear what you guys have to say, but i cant promise I'll listen to all of you. Just review and tell me what you think, okay?;P**


	3. Life is unfair, and a kiss last forever

3.

Life is unfair, and a kiss last forever

"Of course you don't know what I'm talking about, Jasper, or should I say 'Captain Whitlock'." He said with a chill in his voice everyone could feel creeping up our spines. He really didn't like Jasper. That was clear. But what had Jasper done to disserve such dislike from another vampire? He seemed to be utterly on the good side with everyone, not the favorite or most interesting, just with ignorant politeness. Well, that was except Alice of course. His gaze on her was just as breathtaking as the gazes from Esme to Carlisle or Edward to Bella. It was just meant to be.

"Oh, no, you don't. He is just Hale these days," Alice sang playfully as she appeared on top of the porch stairs and walked slowly down the steps to go take her lovers hand. Her expression was mild, but serious all together. Her joke didn't make anyone laugh. "Huh, you really dragged all of them down as you came here, didn't you? They always use to at least smile of my jokes." She laughed at the newcomers with effortless humor, and jumped up to kiss Jaspers cheek. She knew how bad I hated romance and therefore had learned to never use his lips whenever I was close. She was so thought full, yet really annoying if you gave her the opportunity.

I still had to look away, and of course I caught Minni's eyes staring at me. It gave me chills, but I wasn't entirely sure if it was from pleasure or annoyance. I didn't care at the moment.

"Benjamin! Why are you mad at me? Did something happen after I left? Is that it?"¨

"Of course it is. What did you expect? That everything would go smoothly for the once you left behind just because you found the love of your life?" Benjamin's eyes had flashed over to Jasper's again, this time with full fury in them. He looked as if he really struggled to keep his temper down. He stared at Alice for a slight moment, this time with deep envy in his eyes. Then he looked back at me, and something changed. The wrinkles in the corner of his mouth and between his eyebrows were a little decreased, he looked calmer, and that somehow scared the hell out of me. Why would he look at me with such eyes? It didn't make any sense.

"What happened?" Jasper was just as tense as he tried to make Minni explain himself. He concentrated hard; his eyebrows were nearly touching as he creased them.

I could imagine how hard it was for him to feel all the emotions on a daily basis, but now it really must've been killing him. All Minni's emotions were smashed in his face, and even though Minni must've been aware of that, he couldn't control himself.

"He is really having a hard time," Alice muttered. Her little face was also tense in worry for Jasper, but she also noticed Minni's trouble. She hugged herself to Jasper, cautiously watching his face as his wrinkles got deeper.

"You were gone, and Maria was furious," Minni started. "And of course she let the fury out on us. She was mad and unstable, almost like her newborn were before we trained them. Most important she gave me your rank. She replaced your loss with me. But everything had changed; nothing was as it had been once. We were all cautious, but temped by the new ideas. That we could leave her was nothing anyone of us had imagined. And that you had abandoned us didn't help either." Then he stopped, chuckled without humor and lowered his gaze. He exhaled once and looked at Jasper again. "You know, I always looked up to you, you were our leader, our trainer. We trusted you, all of us. But you should only know what happened after you left, how many of us you doomed."

"Doomed? What happened to you?" Jasper started at him. The 'news' from his old life seemed somehow interesting for him. But I thought he hated those days.

"Many, many of us were killed in the battles, or just by Maria herself; you remember how you slaughtered the 'unuseful' ones, right? Less than a month after you'd left we were only 5 left, plus Maria. We had even changed about 2 every day those days, but were still left with so few. Everything was so hard, and it only became worse. I should've left much earlier."

"What do you mean? Why should you have left earlier?" Jasper looked like a big question sign; still weary and not quite following.

"I mean that I should have left with you, you were smart or maybe it was just lucky. What do I know? But what I do know is that it cost me too much to be lingering left with Maria. Do you know how much pain and suffering she has made me feel? Too much, and it's too fucking unfair that it should all happen to me!" he nearly screamed, but his eyes were different. They looked glazed, as if he was about to cry, or as if he wanted to be crying. I understood him, more than I liked.

"What happened?" Esme asked. She sounded anxious, and by the way she held Carlisle by her side, it was easily detected that she was. Her sweet eyebrows were tightened so faint wrinkles appeared between them. The heart shaped face of her looked just as worrying as if some of her children were in danger, or me for that sake.

Minni took a deep breath, it was clear that he didn't enjoy talking about this, but I must admit even how much I knew we were gonna hear something bad, maybe terrible, I was a little bit curious about it too.

"I left her of course, but that was only in the end, when we had no chance of surviving. She was stupid, she insisted that we could keep it going, but I ran off, tired of her sick game of power. And that only made her even crazier. Finally I met this female. Her name was Jessica and she was beautiful." He stopped a second and fasten his eyes on me again. It made me wonder even more. Did he really like me? No, that was absurd; he was mocking me all the time. How could he like me? After thinking about it for half a second I cast it aside and tried to focus on the story again.

"We could've had a life together, just Jessica and me, but of course things wasn't meant to end as in the fairytales, especially not for a vampire like me. One day Maria and two remaining loyal vampires crossed our path, and even though she called it a coincidence I'm sure it wasn't. She got furious when she saw Jessica, said I'd abandoned her. She…" he stopped, again took a deep breath, as in trying to calm himself, but I had already heard his sobbing. I wasn't sure if I'd like to hear the end of his fairytale. "She killed her! Maria killed my true love, the person I was supposed to be with for the rest of eternity! She did it because of jealousy. She said she loved me and that no other woman should stand in our way, so she killed her…" when he said the final words his voice was barely a whisper. It made me want to cry. And I wasn't the only one.

Alice little face was terrified, and she clenched the arms Jasper had put around her shoulders. Esme hid her face in Carlisle's shirt as he held her tightly. His expression was serious, at the border of furious, but not quite that strong. He held his mask better than any other of us.

Those of Benjamin's clan looked just as shocked. Hadn't he spoken to anyone else about his former life? That was weird, but maybe he wasn't the person to make other suffer for his memories.

Something clicked in my head. It was so unlike me. How selfish I was. I'd always let the family know my feelings, at least Edward, but I hadn't thought about how he might've been suffering along with me. My eyes held the ground. I was so afraid of meeting the others gaze. The shame burned my inside as bad as the thirst did. How selfish I was!

I almost didn't notice the dead silence that followed after his voice had died out. My thoughts were occupying all my attention, but I shook it off and lifted my head.

Everyone's attention was either on his or her loved one or somewhere else than Benjamin anyway. He was still, faintly breathing as he tried to concentrate on keeping himself calm enough to stay civilized. He seemed stronger in my eyes, his figure had changed entirely in only one minute. I couldn't possibly imagine what was going through his head, and as I in a moment of weakness wished I had Edward's ability of mind reading I also thanked God I hadn't. My pain was enough for me, and I didn't need to hear everyone's thoughts, that sounded just even more painful. Listening to him telling about it himself was more than enough for me.

We were still silent, but suddenly the front door opened and I could hear Emmett's voice: "Where did everyone go?" and Rosalie answering him: "I think their out in front of the house," she looked a little more enthusiastic as she walked through the front door and stared at all of us standing there in silence.

"Hey, you guys. Who are the pretty boys?" I could hear Emmett's grin in his voice as he walked past her, and somehow it didn't annoy me at the moment. That was weird, and hardly explainable, but I didn't care. Everything was so changed, the atmosphere at least. It was full of sadness thick enough to touch.

"Wow, who died?" Rosalie said in a moment of amusement, but as her love she also noticed this was something too serious to be laughing about.

"Shouldn't we all go inside? It's going to be a wet night, if you'd rather not continue your journey of course." Carlisle suggested with a friendly smile this time. The silence must've gotten to him.

The young one, Bjorn, nodded and followed Carlisle up the stairs and inside the house. They all sat down in the couches around the living-room table, a brown antique with a glass covering the top, one of those furniture Esme loved in the house.

I didn't go sit down with them. I was tired of all the new things that had filled my head with questions, Benjamin most of all. He had walked behind me as we walked inside the house, and his presence burned in my neck. I somehow looked up to him now; because I knew what he had been through and that he had handled it with such grace, when I had only been a baby about my problems. He was bigger than me, and older, and maybe that had something to do with it, but it shouldn't have. I should've been perfectly able to do the same thing. I would never complain about anything anymore. It was so human.

There was a bathroom upstairs and I turned to walk up the stairs as in a reflex. The bath was one way to calm me, and to get my thoughts cleared out. I didn't think about our guests, I honestly didn't give a shit.

What I didn't notice was that he was following me. Not until I touched the handle on the bathroom door he spoke to me.

"Ginny," I think I jumped 3 meters. The scariest part was that I hadn't noticed him. I was a vampire! My point in life was detecting people following me, and still I had been too occupied by my own thoughts. I should be more careful.

"Gees, you scared me!" I breathed and my hand flew up to my throat, a habit I had from my human life, but my thoughts swiftly ran away again as I looked up and met his eyes. Those beautiful, scary, mysterious, yet sad eyes colored with red blood; they were so tempting.

My mouth fell open and my tongue desperately tried to soften my dry lips. Everything was suddenly so unreal. I wasn't aware that vampire could feel this kind of attraction to anything else than blood. Even now the blood thirst was aching in my throat, I still wanted him more than that. _Screw the blood,_ my mouth demanded, _I want HIM!_ But I couldn't, it wasn't appropriate kissing a guy you'd met some hours ago. _I don't want to be appropriate!_ All my senses screamed, but I didn't listen. I took a deep breath.

Benjamin's look was again mysterious, and the slight smile only made me want to hug him closer to me, as close as possible. To have air between us were in truth cruel. We belonged to each other.

"Weren't you expecting me?"

"Should I?" he overall made me curious. He had this weird way of making everything seem so perfectly clear and so incredibly vague at the same time. What did he mean 'weren't I expecting him'?

"I honestly don't know. You seem different to me than most vampires," So, he also noticed my freaky-ness. That was sort of sad. He saw me just as everyone else saw me, as a freak that didn't fit in anywhere.

"Thanks, I guess," I said sighing and rolled my eyes, as I was about to close the door behind me.

"No, I didn't mean it in a bad way. It's kind of relieving, actually. All the vampires I know is somehow distant from me, but you…" He held the door so I couldn't close it, and looked at me with a penetrating gaze, as if he was trying to look through my façade into my deepest secrets. It gave me chills, but this time they were good ones. My heart should've been racing like hell by now. I wanted it to be, but of course you couldn't expect that much when you were a vampire. Being in love made me want to be human again. I wondered why.

"I don't really understand what you are talking about," I giggled and looked away from his face. He really made me act 14, didn't he? That was unnecessary. I was already making a fool of myself, why make it even worse?

"Never mind," he said with his beautiful accent, making the 'N' in 'Mind' deeper, and that also made me want to smile. All about him were all in all wonderful.

I lowered my gaze again, this time letting my gaze fall over his figure. It was different light in here than it had been outside, and I could faintly detect his scars now, all over his upper body. It looked just like the ones Jasper had once shown me, so what he had been talking about was the truth, no question about it.

"I can't imagine…" I said and looked at his face again, his mouth this time. I appreciated keeping my focus while I tried to talk civilized with others, and meeting his eyes was no good way to do that.

"Yeah, it's pretty weird, isn't it? " He said dreamy, and I was pretty sure we weren't talking about the same thing. I only thought about his dead Jessica, how cruel Maria had been to him. I didn't know what I would've done if someone had killed the one I loved most in the world. It truly was unbelievable.

"What did you do after she had… killed your Jessica?" I asked quietly, trying not to sound too impolite, but my curiosity was getting to me again.

"Oh!" Minni said as he caught his breath. A swift moment his face was tight with pain, but he gathered himself and looked at me with sad, but friendly eyes once more.

He dragged a hand through his hair once, the first time I had seen him touching it. The movements made it look even softer than I thought it was, and it gave my hands a terrible urge of touching it themselves. It took me 3 seconds to sharpen up, because I wanted to know the answer on that I had asked, and my lust wouldn't screw everything up just yet.

"Isn't there anywhere we could go to make this a little more private conversation?" he glanced down the stairs into the living-room where we could hear the others talk clearly as if they had been talking directly to our faces. I caught my breath. 'Private' did not sound as innocent as he might have been meaning. It didn't sound innocent at all, actually. But I thought about it. It was in fact a better idea. If I was as weak as I thought I was it would make it a lot less embarrassing to kiss him if not all of our families were watching us. And if I by some miracle could resist it at least would make our conversation a little more private, as he had said already.

"Sure," I said doubtfully. "We could go to my room." Minni eyed me suspiciously with a slight smile on his lips, something that took my breath away in itself. He looked like he had meant the bad version 'private', the type of private I was terrified of and which I at the same time felt an absolute joy of thinking about. I almost made myself vomit by thinking like that. I had to get some grip.

I started walking down the hall. In the end of it Rose and Emmett's room was lying. As we entered their room I could hear Minni's approving "hum". I didn't blame him. Their room was all in all pretty amazing. Alice', Esme's and Rose's sense of fashion and class hadn't skipped this room either, on the other hand maybe consumed it more than any of the other.

There was a beautiful, white, Victorian bed placed in the middle of the room. As any other of the Cullen's bedroom's this wasn't big, and there was faintly a meter from the wall to the bed's edges. It wasn't a problem though; they didn't need any more space. What they used to do in the bedroom's hardly required anything else than a bed.

Else than the bed, the two floor-to-ceiling windows were covered with deep, purple colored drapes that matched the floor and wall color. The Floor had some dark-brown colored wood and the walls were red. It matched astonishingly well, by some stupid reason.

I rolled my eyes at him, and grinned. I was sure he wasn't going to enjoy my room as much, but he would have to live with that.

"So, this is your room?" he commented, but stopped as I walked around the bed, and opened the other door placed at the bed's right side.

"Nope, I'll have to disappoint you there. My room is up stairs," I shook my head in amusement as his expression changed to something less amazed. I pointed with my left forefinger up the stairs behind the door I'd just opened. He followed my gaze and made another "hum". This time it sounded interested, as if saying: "I wonder what she might be hiding up there," That kind of creeped me out.

"We'll have to see about that. It's not easy to disappoint me, just as you know." He winked at me, and it sent another icy shot down my spine. I was far too easily taken off guard with this guy. I didn't know that I could be this shaky for anyone. It made me want to hit myself, and that a guy should make me masochistic was seriously not good.

"I guess not," I said shrugging as I ran up the stairs, taking in the room before he could, mostly to check if something was out of place; a bra lying around or dirty clothes. But it was clean as always; one of Alice' morning routines was to check if all our rooms were in proper shape, and she cleaned them if not. It made me want to kiss her right now.

"Wow, this is different!" He said smiling, as he stepped up from the last step onto the floor in my "room". Yeah, it was different. My room was big, really big, or long. I'd gotten the loft apartment, which meant the house's width, only lower under the roof. I personally loved it. I had one circled bed on the floor close to the steps. In truth it wasn't a real bed, it was a mattress placed on the floor actually, only Alice had made Emmett and Edward make me a frame to it, so it would "match the surroundings" better, as Alice had pointed it out. I had no idea how she forced them to do it though, but I was grateful, and it did match better. The rest of the room was more a storage, but I had of course a mirror and a dresser next to the bed.

"It's Alice idea," I said, as if speaking to myself. "One of her birthday gifts to me. The best!" I was talking about the room, but again he had other things in mind.

"Yeah, what a bed! I'd be grateful for something like that as well, if I were you," he swiftly threw a glance at me, before taking in the rest of the room. "But the loft? Isn't that a little sad, to be away from all the other, stored away up here?" He sounded kind of amused, but I went angry. How dared he say something like that about my family? I wasn't stored away! It was better than no room at all. Wasn't it?

"Shut up! They didn't store me away, I wanted this, and how often do YOU sleep? I only use this room whenever I need to be alone, okay? So don't you come here and make judgments about something you doesn't know anything about!" I turned around to face him as I spoke, and pointed my finger at him right under his nose. He should know whom he was dealing with. I didn't care if he made fun of me, but he should never insult my family!

"Whoa, take it easy! I was only fooling around. I'm so sorry! Really, Ginny, forgive me!" That took my breath away, but I was high on adrenaline from the anger, and it didn't make my mask crack as easily as ever. I had thousand things I'd like to tell him. But I sighed. I guessed "I'm sorry" was good an apology if he hadn't meant it, which I actually couldn't be sure about.

"Apology accepted, for now," I said with a warning tone. He exhaled in relief, and that mysterious smile appeared again. I "humph"-ed, but my eyes were already lost in his. It was hard, but I somehow managed to stay civilized. Now the lust was even harder to bear. We were alone, on my room, and he was there, hardly 30cm away from me. My hands needed something to do, as in something else than wishing to be all over his body.

I took off my leathery jacket, and I thought I could hear the breath Minni's mouth drew for only a tenth of a second in astonishment again. I damned my choice of clothes to have under the jacket, now that I saw Minni's reaction. It was a blue, deep, deep blue singlet with spaghetti straps, and it was too open, I noticed. But that was sort of too late now. He could just see too much of my boobs. This hadn't been a problem before; all the other males in the house were already lost in someone, and didn't notice me that way. It had been a good feeling, not having to look pretty or, as Rosalie had told me was the most important, sexy. Nope, this guy had come far too unexpected, and I hadn't got enough time to prepare myself. That was bloody unfair!

"You didn't answer my question back there," I hinted in desperate need of another subject. I tried to tie my eyes to something else than him, but that wasn't the easiest task. It was something else when we had been outside or with others, but being alone with him in a room, disturbed by no one… it was in truth madness.

"You're right," he said with a light tone. "I don't like to speak about it, actually, but I think you can keep a secret, so I've decided to tell you anyway." He exhaled. He'd got that troubled, painful look on his face again, and I wanted to smooth those painful wrinkles away with my hands, but it somehow felt wrong. If he were going to talk about his old love of eternity, I would have to change my set of thought. Maybe he was that kind of vampire that took the bad with the good. I would still not disrespect her memory by hooking up with him while he was talking about her. That was just plain cruelty.

"I got terribly angry of course, but I couldn't make myself kill Maria, I still don't know why. Maybe it was because she had made me, maybe because I knew her too well; I don't know; I don't care. So I ran off instead, leaving her, Jessica and my old life behind another time." He looked even more troubled as he said the last sentence, and I was sure he had loath in his tone. He was furious with himself, I could see that. I wish he wasn't. The fact that he hadn't killed her sort of interested me.

"Don't be mad at yourself, you have no reason to," I said steady, while looking into his eyes, for the first time without almost loosing all consciousness.

"Oh, but I have. Don't you think it's awfully cowardly to just run away? Humans run, that's because they are weak. If there's anything I'm not, it's weak. I could've killed her and her two companions, but I ran! Juvenile, stupid and cowardly! That's what it was, and that's what I am!"

"No, it's not, it shows respect. You loved Maria, because she had created you, that is reasonable, and you loved your Jessica of course, and even though you didn't kill Maria for killing Jessica, doesn't mean you are weak or a coward." I placed my hand on his arm and stared into his eyes. While we had been speaking we had moved over to the bed to sit down face to face on it. Minni didn't look at me; he stared at his hand that was now tightened into fists. He might not have the same muscles as his brothers, but he didn't seem any less powerful to me.

"Do you want to hear a theory of mine?" I asked as he continued to stare at his hands. I looked down on his, embarrassed over what I was about to say. It was just a theory, and even though it seemed stupid and silly, it was a relief.

"Sure," he now lifted his gaze to look at me. His eyes were glazed again.

"I believe, that people you love walk around us when they dies, as their own chance to say good bye. Especially if they died unexpectedly, and your Jessica was certainly one of those cases. I'm sure she wouldn't have like it if you killed Maria. She had already seen how much you grieved over her, and knew you loved her. I'm sure she was glad she didn't have to see that mean side of you, because she knew how kind you were. Don't worry about it; there are more between heaven and earth than you and I know about. I mean, just look at us!"

He looked dazed at me for more than a minute. His expression was sad, on the line with heartbreaking to watch. Then he started sobbing. It sounded terrible. He just collapsed. First the expression faded then his head dropped to his hands so I couldn't see him. All the hair was covering his face now he sat bend like that. I wondered how such a beautiful person could feel so bad inside, how it was even legal. I wanted to take it away, but I didn't know what to say. To be around mourning people always made me feel awkward as a human. I didn't know how it was like, so I didn't know what to say to make him feel better. That was killing me.

He suddenly lifted his head. His eyes were intensely focused in on me, and next to all the sorrow I could see a new emotion in them. It reminded me of my own lust, just different, more powerful. Whatever he felt, it was taking over.

In one second he was staring at me, in the other he pressed his lips against mine as he heaved me on my back towards the mattress. That was one of the most overwhelming things I'd ever experienced. Everything went so fast, and yet it seemed that we were stuck in the present. That first one hundred of a second seemed to last forever. But it was a good forever, a forever I could spend only with him.


	4. Like a Rebith

4.

Like a rebirth

I grabbed his hair, pushing myself closer to him, finally pressing him towards my body as I had been dreaming of all day. I didn't think, didn't breathe, didn't care; I finally had him inside my reach, and I was not letting him go. My hands finally got to examine his chest, his back, his hair and his neck, as I moved my lips with his for the first time. They were soft, much softer than I could've ever imagined, and they were fierce. It only made me hunger for more, more power, more love. Only I got him everything would be perfect.

His hands were all over my body as well. At first he had them supportively under my head and neck, pressing me as close to him as I wanted to be. But as I got my arms fixed around his head with my hands in his hair, which was much softer and thicker than it looked, he moved himself more comfortably around me.

He ripped off my singlet as easily as if it was made of paper, and the bra much easier. I was ignorant about that. He could touch me as much as he liked. It felt wonderful, as if a shock shot out of his fingertips every time he touched my skin. It made the hair all over my body stand straight up, still his skin felt perfectly hot to me. It was fantastic, nothing I'd ever felt before.

He breathed my name every time he moved his lips from mine, with many complains from me of course, to either kiss my chest or neck, or to smell my hair. And I breathed his, his real name. It was too mocking to call him Minni at a moment like this, also I think he appreciated Benjamin more.

I let one hand follow his chest down to his bellybutton, over all the scars which I could see so much clearly now that I knew about them. They felt so significant to my fingertips, it almost annoyed me, but I didn't let this disturb my moment. Our lips moved back and forth, our tongues softly examined each other's mouths; we were in deep.

He kissed my breast carefully, but then he kept going down my stomach as I had done just before. His kisses were like the careful breathe of the wind, the way it had felt like when I had been human, and I wondered why the hell I had been trying to maintain myself today, instead of doing this. I was stupid. I should have known that if we liked each other as good as I had thought, we shouldn't have been apart. Those unnecessary things like feeding and breathing were pointless without him. What the heck had I been up to the last 10 years? At only one minute my whole life as a vampire seemed wasted. That was annoying.

I growled at myself for letting myself down in a moment like this, and it made Minni stop kissing me. That only made me growl again.

"What is wrong?" he said, his eyes were bright red, and I was sure I was about to drown in them.

"Nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong!" I hissed impatient. I didn't want for him to stop, never! He smiled, this time he looked absolutely happy, like nothing in this world could make him fall apart again. That made me blissful, and I only held him tighter to my body as I kissed his neck and chest.

He finally ripped off my tights, which I probably had to explain for Rosalie later. His Hands caressed my right thigh, and he laid himself over me with his full body strength. I stretched out my hands to take his face closer to mine, before I pressed my lips onto his again.

Even though it was merely 7 o'clock when we had got to my room, we stayed together all the rest of the day and the night. It was right that the time passed too quickly. If it had been my choice I would have laid like that with him for the rest of my life, never needing to get up, never needing to be with any others, never anything. Only him and me!

I thought about how I had wished I had a soul mate, and I remembered how Carlisle had been speaking with me this afternoon, which seemed to be more than a hundred years ago. I figured he was right. I was damn lucky to have found Benjamin, and I couldn't see how I could live without him now. And the night also seemed to make so much more sense to me now than before.

"How are you feeling?" Minni whispered. His eyes were steady fixed in on mine, and it made me feel warm inside. We were still holding tightly onto each other, lying on our sides, staring into each other's eyes. I could never get enough of that face, ever. Even though I had studied every tiny wrinkle, every set of his mouth, every spot in his flawless eyes, I couldn't get enough.

My hand rested upon his cheek. It felt hot on my skin. He held his arms protectively around me, while I laid playing with his hair, or caressing his face, or kissing him gently from time to time. This was the closest I would ever come to paradise, I was sure of it.

"I'm feeling exclusively wonderful," I breathed, and smiled blissfully. His retuning smile made me catch my breath, and over again I had to touch his lips with my fingers. His finger caught them and started kissing them softly; first at all the fingertips, then the inside of my hand, until he finished by kissing me softly and long on the top of my hand. It made me giggle. Minni's expression made his face look entirely peaceful. I exhaled.

"Why are you asking?" I asked him curiously. He shrugged.

"I don't know. I'm just not used to this, you know," he laughed under this breath, and dragged his hand through my hair. It felt good, like a dog being patted on his belly.

"Not used to what?" I bit my under lip, but I wasn't quite sure about the difference between what I was expecting to hear and what I wanted to hear.

"_There's something that I can't quite explain_," Minni started singing in a low, but beautiful voice, and I knew exactly which song it was. I got so happy, all my veins were near to explode, and I felt a warm feeling inside I had never felt before. "I'm so in love with you…" he continued, and even though it was the line in the song, he didn't sing it this time; he said the words clearly and with honesty in his voice. I stared at him. I could bet that my mouth was hanging open. I didn't care! He was in love with _me_! Really? That was enough for my head to start spinning, and the next thing I knew was that I had my lips pressed towards his lips. Apparently I had thrown myself over him when my mind had clicked. My arms were securely locked around his neck again, and I was filled with exclusively happiness once more.

His hands and mouth found my neck, and I sighed. I had never felt this much pleasure in all my 30 years of living, neither as a human nor a vampire, and I suddenly felt like I had a meaning in life.

"I love you!" I said under my breath. He abruptly stopped, and his expression made me cautious. He looked like someone had died; his eyes widened and his mouth fell open, and I suddenly regretted my stupidity. He surely was still grieving over Jessica, and therefore it was absurd of me to think he should love me now. Even though he had said that he was _in_ love with me, that didn't mean he loved me.

But then his expression changed. He looked relieved; like I had finally said something he had been waiting for in a long time. His face was only one inch away from mine, and I could feel the hair on my arms rise. One of his hands flew up to touch my cheek softly.

"You do?" He sounded astonished, but his expression was so beautiful. The smile I had already seen so many times on his face was nothing compared to the one I stared at now. He was so beautiful, my kind of beautiful.

"Of course I do!" I said loudly, I wanted him to believe me. "I have from the very first moment I saw you." My hands played with the hair on either side of his face. I kissed him long, trying to push as much of my love into it as possible. He fiercely started to kiss me back as he realized I was speaking the truth. His arms held me tight to his body, and I wanted it to last.

"I thought I wouldn't say this to anyone ever again," he chuckled between our kisses. "I love you too!" It again caught me off guard.

"Really?" I sighed, as he moved his lips down my throat. He lifted his head to look me in the eyes. One moment his expression was entirely serious.

"I do!" I wanted to cry. It was true; there was a vampire out there for me. My very own mate. It was scary what big a coincidence this had been. What if I hadn't decided to take that trip today? Would I never have met Minni, then? Wouldn't I have been in his arms now? I didn't like to think like this. I shook my head.

"What?" Minni's expression suddenly looked weary.

"It was nothing," I whispered as I met his eyes again. I really wanted to cry, but that was no option, so I tightened my arms around his neck, and hugged him. I was so afraid I would loose him, I couldn't make myself let go but after several minutes.

Minni breathed as if he was tired after running, and his face was beautiful, as if belonging to a God. It made me caress it again.

--

"Why?" Minni asked. I lay on his chest, touching his skin faintly again and again, while he had his arms protectively around me and played with my hair.

"Why what?" I mumbled. My head was spinning with joy, and I didn't really think about anything at the moment. But as he started speaking I paid better attention. His voice left my inside warm, and my head spinning, but still clear somehow.

"Why did you fall in love with me?"

"I guess it was meant to be,"

"That's not good enough," he hinted playfully. I sighed.

"Isn't it?" He shook his head, and then laughed.

"Of course it is, I'm just curious." He kissed the top of my hair. I lifted my head so I could see his face. Minni was as beautiful as ever, if not even more.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe, and I'm sure this will sound so stupid, but I think something about your mysterious look, like the tattoo and the fact that you were bare-chested attracted me. That was really cruel, you know, to let me have to look at you like that. It was so tempting." I laid my head back down on his chest, and exhaled. My fingertips kept making slight circles on his belly.

"Really?" He sounded amused. "Mysterious look, huh? Well, what do you think was most attractive about you, then?"

"Hum, I'm not sure," I said with acted enthusiasm. "It must've been my incredibly sexy leather jacket, right?" I chuckled.

"Not really," he said. His voice was serious, in contrary to mine. "It was your eyes. It sounds so cliché, but it is the truth," he said, and lifted my head unexpectedly with his hand to make me look in his eyes. "You are the first vampire I have ever seen with golden eyes, and it looks beautiful."

"_She speaks to me in Persian, tells me that she loves me; the girl with golden eyes. And though I hardly know her I let her in my veins, and trust her with my life_," I sang quietly. Minni looked at me, and smiled.

"I didn't know you spoke Persian," he whispered teasingly, and kept playing with my hair. "I know the song: 'Girl With Golden Eyes'. It's old, really old."

"That's 'Calling you' too," I smiled faintly, referring to the song he had sung for me some hours ago. "I don't really like either." I said ignorant. He shrugged.

"Who cares about the music?" he smiled mysterious again, and the sight of it made my head spin.

"Yeah," I whispered lightheaded, and had no chance to take my eyes away from his.

He started kissing my shoulder softly, and again there was no better thing than his lips towards my skin, his soft breath nor his eyes. I remembered how I once had found that extremely awful, but I couldn't see how. There was nothing but beauty in those blood-red eyes of his.

I don't think there is a word that would explain how I felt. It was some sort of mix of all the great feelings I had ever felt in my vampire life; I felt pleasure, happiness, joy, sadness, curiosity, irritation, and much more, all at the same time. It was when I was a newborn. In the earliest days I had shifting emotions just like these, but this was so much bigger. Even though it hadn't been close to like it was now, it was the easiest way for me to explain it. I was reborn into a new, extraordinary life. I was no longer a vampire like I had been once. What my body demanded to live was no longer blood; it was love.

"What do you miss the most?" I suddenly asked, and then smiled while I bit my lip. It took him off guard, I think. He stopped kissing me, lifted his head some inches so he more easily could read my expression.

"About what?" He had wrinkles between his eyebrows, and I automatically touched his face to smooth it. The look annoyed me. He was so beautiful when he was happy, and I couldn't stand to look at him with such a grimace on his face. It wasn't supposed to be like that.

"About being human," I said, as if such a topic was as usual as any. In my family we basically talked about anything, and our human lives was the topic that interested me the most, so obviously we talked about that a lot.

"Why do you wonder about that?" He sighed, as if he was annoyed. I shrugged, and pursed my lips. I didn't want him to be mad at me.

"It's okay if you won't tell me. It's just that we use to talk about it a lot, and therefore I thought it wasn't a big deal, but apparently it is. I'm sorry." I got up to sit up straight in front of him, and again touched his face carefully. The increased wrinkles between his eyebrows and in the corner of his mouth really worried me.

"Don't be. I'm not used to talk about it, that's all," he tried to smile, but failed it completely.

"Forget it. It's not important," I whispered and leaned forward to kiss his mouth. He kissed me intensely, and captured my head in his hands. He held me tight and kept kissing me, until he moved my face away slowly.

"I was born August the 23rd, 1840 in a small town near London. My family, the Colby's, was an old and respected family back then. My mother, Amelia Colby, who was forced into the marriage with my father, died after giving birth to me, their first son, but second child. My sister was named Amelia Marie after my mother, and I was named Benjamin after my father, and got my nickname because of that. My father was a Ship-owner, and I obviously had to take over the business after him. I was therefore forced to work a lot with the ships, which I personally found dull. All I wanted to do was draw, but drawing was no profession for a rich man's boy, at least when he had such splendid alternatives." His voice was ignorant as he spoke of his family, like they didn't mean anything to him at all, and never had. That made me sad, but I couldn't really grasp the reality he had been living in, compared to the one I had to remember. It was so very different.

"When I was 10 my father sent me off with one of his finest ships to Australia, with prisoners who were sent in exile from England, like they did back then. I stayed in Australia until I became 18. The country and the Aboriginals interested me, and I used many of them as my subjects for drawings. That's where I also learned the art of tattooing for the first time. To imprint something permanent onto your skin seemed unbelievable and tremendously interesting to me. You could actually wear your drawings on your own body."

"Was that when you got your tattoo?" I asked dreamy, and made one of my fingers slide slowly over the face of the devil. Its black eyes stared at me, and I could feel the creeps in my neck.

"No, that happened much later." He said and kissed my cheek slowly and soft. I was sitting next to him, leaning myself over him, while he had his arms protectively around me. It made me feel warm and happy inside. Just what a couple should look like.

"So, what happened?" I hinted carefully, not wanting to rush him, now that he had finally started to speak. He turned his head to look at me, and smiled faintly.

"I broke my fathers arrangements. I didn't ship back to him; I traveled around the world, over to America where I wanted to study tattooing. I wanted to know more, learn more. It was wrong, but that only made me even more excited about it. I went to Mexico, and that's when Maria and Jasper found me, and the rest of that you know. But even though I was vampire, I still was highly fascinated by tattooing and by knowing our skin could barely get penetrated, I got a little frantic about finding a new way to tattoo myself. After Maria had killed Jessica, I made myself concentrate about that one thing. The venom in my skin had erased all the tattoos I'd got in Australia. It annoyed me. I traveled to South-America, Africa, and Europe, everywhere to learn more than I knew, and maybe find a way to make it work, even as a vampire.

It was in the early 20s that I traveled to Asia, as a last resort, and that's when I met him. He was an ancient vampire, from the early Middle Ages. He had a unique technique to tattoo vampires. In Japan having a tattoo is a symbol for the vampires, and that fed me with even more fascination. You see, this old vampire used one of his own teeth to tattoo the immortal ones. He drowned it in some special ink he had blended with his own venom and ash, and then started drawing. He had cut all his teeth out for more than 1000 years earlier. As far as I know, he was some sort of doctor or scientist, and it didn't matter to him if he had his teeth or not. He was a much admired vampire, and got cups with human blood that his followers brought to him every day." I caught my breath in astonishment. Even thinking about cutting my own teeth out made me squeal. It must have hurt so badly, I couldn't even imagine. But Minni's eyes reminded me about a little child on Christmas Eve, and I couldn't do anything else than imagine what he must think of this. He must've been so over excited.

"Whoa, that's quite something," I breathed, while staring into space. I thought about it, not only the tattooing; his whole life.

"After I got my tattoo, I felt content; I'd figured it out, and suddenly I was free. I had nothing to do, nothing special in mind, and nothing I required. But I'd always been an explorer, so I traveled a lot, and drew many sketches and paintings as I moved on. I met Bjorn, Rany and Dai in western Germany. I visited some of the famous galleries there, and practically ran into them somewhere in between. That was in the early 50's, and they had just got their new Morgan. It too fascinated me. That was about the first time I had ever noticed cars. Their proportions were so precise and such art gained my attention fast. And the same was it with bikes, so it didn't take long before I got the Harley." He chuckled and caressed my face with the outside of his hand.

"You are lucky. You have experienced so many things," I whispered with the envy thick in my voice. Even though some of it was terrible, it was an adventure. I had never moved my but outside America, and I had often dreamed of adventures like that.

"But you still haven't answered my question," I said stubbornly, and looked at him with a half grin. He pursed his lips.

"Hum… What do I miss the most?" he asked himself with a puzzled tone, while he leaned over to kiss my neck. It made me giggle. "I think I miss getting older, to change; the feeling that you don't have forever to live, and should live your life in the now or you'll lose it. That's what I miss the most."

"That was easy," I said, but I understood what he meant. Personally I'd never lived my life like that, at least not while I was human.

"How old are you, Ginny? What is your real name?" He closed his eyes. His breath was even, and I could feel the need of touching his face again. I let a hand rest on his cheek lightly. I had to think about what I wanted to answer on that one.

"I am basically 19," I teased "but overall I'm 30 years old next month. My Real name is Ginger Black. I was born on a place called La Push, near the small town Forks in Washington. My father's name is Jacob Black and is the leader of a werewolf pack who protects the villagers there."

"Werewolf? Are you kidding me?" He interrupted. His expression looked shocked. Clearly he couldn't believe what I was saying.

"No," I said and chuckled under my breath. "That's why I smell different than a vampire should, and why Alice can't see my future or Edward can't read my mind. It has something to do with the mix-up of the species. It's unnatural." I shrugged and sighed. It was true I was a freak, but a different freak than I had thought before. "Basically I should've been a werewolf by now. Well, at least I've always been destined to never have a child, so that's a relieve." I started laughing silently. He chuckled and shook his head.

"Yeah, I noticed you were different from the first time I saw you, but I would've never imagined…" he trailed off. His eyes stared at me. "You have a different smell, that's correct, but I somehow adore it. It is sweet, but raw at the same time. Its unique." He smiled and stroke my cheek with one hand. I closed my eyes and felt the touch on my skin. It was as wonderful as ever.

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's different, but good, another kind of good. Tell me more!" He demanded enthusiastically. I laughed, shook my head in astonishment, but started telling again.

"My mother is named Amalie Sundbø and comes from Norway. I traveled to Alaska to study 20 years ago, but got abused and was near to die when Alice and Rosalie found me."

"Really?" He said. He looked suddenly furious, but slid his arms protectively around me. "I would never let anyone harm you!" He said through clenched teeth. It made me almost laugh.

"You sound like my father, and I think I'm in prefect position of protecting myself at the moment." I said, without any humor now. It was still a sensitive subject to talk about my former life, but I had other techniques to handle it now.

"You are?" He kissed my lips as he formed his hands around my cheeks and held me there. I exhaled a big amount of air as he moved himself over me again. His hands were light on my skin, and I enjoyed it. He knew exactly how to pleasure me.

11


	5. Listen to Your Brother

5.

Listen to your brother

"Shouldn't we join the other's soon?" I asked, toying with his hair. Minni got a playful look in his eyes before he pushed me around so he could kiss my lips, while I spoke. As he got my words, his expression changed into something else. He frowned at me.

"Why should we?" Benjamin rolled back onto his back, and dragged me along with him, so we both were lying on our backs, watching the clear morning sky as the sun made it brighter every second.

Through the little, or rather huge, window in the ceiling everything was white. It was a usual, but rather quiet morning here in the north. At least it wasn't raining, and even though the previous day had been really over the top, with its fair share of sunlight, this wasn't half bad either.

Then another thing struck me. It hadn't occurred to me before, because I already was sucked up by the beauty and sexuality about his naked chest, but he had indeed been bare-chested on a day when the sun was presented on the sky more than once. What if humans saw him?

"Minni?" I started slowly. The question somehow made me feel embarrassed. It was unnecessary as usual, but I'd like to know. "Wasn't it a bit reckless to be wearing no shirt yesterday?" He "Hmpf"-ed while a little, smug grin emerged on his lips.

"Why on earth do you wonder about that?" Without a doubt embarrassing. I sighed. "Am I that boring? You need to come up with silly questions like that to fill the time?" He laughed honestly now, and he was laughing at me. That irritated me. Wasn't I allowed to ask questions without being "silly" now?

"No, you are not boring, in that case you would've noticed by now," I looked away from him, rolling my eyes.

He sighed as well, but he wasn't mad at me, he was mad at himself. "I am sorry, Ginger!" he said, but my head snapped up. My mind was no longer annoyed.

"Don't ever call me that!" I snapped almost as fast as my head had done, and ten times fiercer. It wasn't my name anymore, and I couldn't explain to myself why I had told him about it in the first place.

"Why?" He asked in a playful tone, not close to the reply I had been expecting. Minni moved his lips down my throat and over my shoulder. He kissed my collarbone and then moved himself down to my breast. Somehow he managed to use his tongue as kind as his lips, and it almost managed to clear my head for thoughts, but just almost.

"Because," I started, but pushed him away from me gently after half a minute. "It's not my name anymore. It belongs to my old life." I clenched my teeth and moved away from him to sit on the edge of the bed. My feet hit the floor with a soft thud. I rested my face on my left fist. It was weird how everything was suddenly left upside down. It wasn't supposed to be like this with him. I loved him and I needed him, but how could I be so angry with him?

"I am sorry… Ginny!" he said a little hesitant. It made me chuckle. I wasn't known to be angry a long time. It always wore off after half a minute. Minni placed his arms around me from behind and started to kiss the back of my shoulder. "You really are a mystery to me, young lady," he teased, and it made me smile by the way he seemed so untouched by our confrontation just now. It also made me annoyed with myself. I was so damn proud all the time.

"Bleagh," I stuck out my tongue, as Minni dragged me back onto the mattress and stood over me with his arms resting on either side of my head. He leaned in and touched my lips with his. When he was about to lift his head, I grabbed both sides of his head with my hands to keep him there. He smiled mysteriously again, and it made me catch my breath and filled my body with fire. His hands slid under my back to press me to his body again. I stared into his eyes. The red was so red, and it was like I was inspecting the wine before tasting it, which was exactly what I was doing. I took him in, only staring at him. Then he sighed, and his lips were at mine again, as forceful as ever. I closed my eyes, and moved my lips with his. Again his touch sent pure lightning into my skin.

Suddenly someone knocked on the door in the bottom of the stairs, and my head snapped up. In an instant I threw myself around. I grabbed one of the thousand shirts Alice had got me from deep down in one of my drawers with clothes. I swiftly buttoned it up, and called: "What?" to whoever was at the door.

"May I come up?" Edward's voice was deep, and it made me uncomfortable. I looked at Minni. He shrugged, as if he didn't care.

"Um, sure," I said, biting my lower lip. I didn't know exactly what made me want to run away. Maybe it was embarrassment of being such a slut. At least Minni took the sheet over himself before Edward emerged. If not he, I would've died of embarrassment.

Edward walked slowly up the stairs. He looked weary, like he didn't know what to expect. That made me even more embarrassed, because that was so far from the truth it could possibly be. He knew exactly what was going on up here; his brilliant ability to read minds was the cause of that. It made me curse inside, but I was happy he couldn't read my mind. That was so convenient. At least he didn't hear it from my point of view.

"Ginny," he directed all his attention to me, whom stood before him, with shivering knees and what must have been the most stupid expression on my face. I wanted to slap myself. _Snap out of it! _I demanded myself. _There is nothing to be ashamed of!_ I was right, and I knew it.

"What, brother?" I relaxed and showed him my cutest smile. His face remained hard, as his eyes examined me, from my face to my feet to my face again.

"Get dressed. We're going on a hunt. The weather is perfect, and you are much too hungry to skip it this time." I wished he would stop to tell me what I was or wasn't. He couldn't read my mind, so he should stop pretending like he could.

I concentrated to not snap something impolite at him, and smiled instead. "Sure," I turned to look at Minni. He shrugged and smiled, but he nodded. He looked perfectly at ease. And I could suddenly feel the burn in my throat, and could bet that my eyes were as black as Edward's at the moment.

I turned to look at my brother again, and noticed his eyes burning into Minni's. Something about their quiet confrontation irritated me. I sighed and turned my back to them both. My hands ripped up the lowest drawer and took the first pair of jeans they could find. They were black, matching my eyes perfectly. I deliberated with myself if I should change the shirt too, and I would've done it in front of Edward just to annoy him, but I didn't bother. It was nice, and fitted my shape perfectly.

I walked over to Minni and kissed him as passionate as I could possibly manage. I chuckled when I heard Edward's teeth clench together with a snap, and pulled myself softly away from my beloved with my hands still in his hair.

"Make yourself at home," I whispered under my breath as I walked away from Minni and over to Edward again. "Shall we?" I smiled delighted, as he rolled his eyes and placed his hand on my back to push me lightly down the stairs and away from Minni.

He kept quiet as we moved ourselves through Rosalie and Emmett's room. I could feel the cold of his eyes on my back and the burn of my thirst in my throat. It wasn't easy to decide which one I enjoyed more than the other. It wasn't before we had closed the door behind us he grabbed my arm and pushed me to the wall where he held me tightly.

"What is it about tormenting me you just love?" He sounded almost desperate, but his stare kept being cold on me. I didn't know what to answer.

"Your expression," I answered smugly. "By the way, mind your own business. Why do you care, anyway?"

"I wish I could," he flashed his teeth. "It's not like I'm trying to listen to him." Edward looked more hopeless now than angry. He dragged one hand fiercely through his hair, like he didn't know what to do or say. "But, Ginny, he isn't what you think!"

"Sure, he isn't." I rolled my eyes and ducked under his arm to walk down the hall and to the other. I was sick of his everlasting attempt to "protect his littlest sister" as he once had phrased it.

"He has this ability. Really, Ginger! Listen–" I spun around and pointed my finger at him, threatening and angry.

"No, I wont listen! You know what, _brother_? I. Don't. Care! I don't care what special ability he has that could be so dangerous for me. God damn it, Edward. I am a vampire! I'm not some porcelain doll. Would you please stop acting like I am one?" I growled so I was sure the entire house could hear me. I didn't care! "I love him, Edward, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it! So, please; SHUT UP!"

I screamed with my fists tightened so I could almost feel the nails penetrating my skin. My eyes were closed. It was almost like I could hear the windows vibrate with the volume I'd had on my voice. But it was true; I did love him, and it was too late to go back on that now. It would be better for both of us if he could realize that, and stop being so overprotective about me.

I relaxed, and opened my eyes so I could see his face. He looked like he was in agony. His teeth were clenched, his lips pulled back over them, and his eyes were anywhere but on my face. I was sorry I had to say that to him, but he really annoyed me. He didn't need or disserve any pity, and I wouldn't give him any either.

I groaned and walked down the hall away from him. I needed some time off. Somehow I knew this day would be just perfect, especially if everyone was going to "protect me" from the love of my existence.

"Ginny?" Alice voice sang from down the corridor.

"Yes, Alice?" I replied, still tense with annoyance. There she stood, literally jumping from one foot till the other. She seemed so happy, and it infected me instantly. I felt suddenly lighter inside. I ran to her in a second, wondering what she was so happy about. "What is it?" I asked, a smile playing around the edges of my mouth.

When she got the look of my face she jumped up and threw her arms around my neck. She hugged me tightly. It made me chuckle, I still didn't know what was so great.

"I'm so happy for you, Ginny!" Alice said in my hair, and released me slowly. She kissed my cheek, and then looked at Edward with a face I couldn't interpret. Either she was mad with him, or she was just weary. I wanted to know, because I was sure it was about me.

"Ginny, why don't you go down stair to the others? Esme seemed quite worried for you," Edward said behind me, but I didn't turn to look at him. He placed on hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off.

"'Kay," I said with a suspicious tone and walked down the stairs to the others waiting there. Edward was right. As my foot hit the ground floor, Esme was in front of me, touching my face with her left hand while she grabbed my hand with her right. She smiled as she saw my expression, clearly relieved.

"Oh, darling!" She said as she closed me into a soft hug. She was happy, and that made me happy; happy that she, unlike Edward, didn't judge me or overprotect me. I couldn't understand why he would forbid me to have such pleasures when he knew how it was like, no matter how bad influence he meant Minni had on me. That made me mad at him again.

"Was about time, wasn't it, Ginny?" Emmett laughed like a bear while he scoffed my shoulder. I only smiled. Even though I knew he was making fun of me, it was better being made fun of than being protected from something I didn't need any protection from. And it was fun. He made me laugh for a change.

Alice danced down the stairs, and took my other hand. Esme still hung onto the other. "Come, let's hunt," Alice encouraged us.

"You go," Carlisle said. "Rosalie, Jasper, Edward, you go too," Edward walked down the stairs after Alice, but I refused to look at him.

"Sure," Edward said. I followed the others out the veranda door. Esme and Alice held me between them as we ran through the forest. Esme smiled at me, and hugged me to her side. "Don't be so hard on him," she whispered. She referred to Edward, no doubt about it.

"He do mean it good. Don't blame him; he loves you, and he only want to protect you." She sounded so wise, so mother-like; it almost annoyed me, because she was right. I sighed.

"I know," I said, it almost hurt to admit it. "But he is going a little overboard with this, don't you think?" I looked at her. She sighed too, but recovered her smile ever so fast.

"Yes, I know. But look at it like this; you are his youngest sister, and he read men's heads all the time, he know what men are thinking, he know what Benjamin is thinking, and I'm not saying anything, I just want you to think about it. It's not easy for him, and he only wants you the best. So, dear, give him another chance. He deserves it." I groaned.

"But, that is the point; he is a man, and he knows how wonderful it is to have someone to love. Why doesn't he want that for me, then? I have stayed up alone every night since I became a vampire, waiting for something I was sure would never come. My life has been meaningless," Esme and Alice cut in at the same time.

"That is not true!" Esme took my face in her hands again, and slowed down to a stop. "Your life has not been meaningless, Ginny. We all love you. Even if there hasn't been a man in your life till now, doesn't mean it's meaningless. I'm sure you won't believe me, but there is more to life than sex." I could hear Alice' laugh-snort, but Esme shot her a hard look and she shut up. "You know that Edward waited for his Bella in more than 90 years."

"I can't possibly imagine anything worse," I raised an eyebrow and pursed my lips.

"The point is, don't haste yourself, and don't be too hard on him. Promise me." She demanded, and I smiled.

"Sure, mum," I said with a playful edge. She laughed and kissed my cheek.

"Now, shall we see how fast we can outrun the guys?" She teased and dragged me along as they started running again.

We ran into the boys and Rosalie a few miles from where we had stopped. They were standing in the middle of the forest arguing so loud I was sure you could hear it standing in our living room back at the house. It seemed like Jasper and Edward was on the one team and Rosalie alone on the other. I could've bet, even though I knew, what they were arguing about. Jasper seemed to have skipped in on the "protective" side. That irritated me. Jasper, who usually didn't care much for others personal life was now in deepest, yelling at Rosalie with some fact he claimed was right. She was of course yelling back, and that made me slightly more optimistic.

"No, Edward, Jasper! She has the right to choose whomever she'll like, okay? Stop babysitting her, for Christ sake."

"You don't know him, Rosalie, and neither does she. He is not what he seems, neither personality nor appearance," was the great answer Jasper came up with. I could hear Rosalie's snort which probably was followed by eye rolling or glowering. I wanted to kiss her for sticking up for me like that, not her usual behavior, but that didn't mean I didn't appreciate it.

We stopped next to them. I wanted to smack the both of the guys. How interfering did they have to become? It was my personal life they were discussing!

"Snap out of it, all of you. I honestly don't care, but you just have to go on and ruin everything, doesn't you?" I basically spoke to Edward, but I did blame Jasper too. They hadn't been expecting me, and my interruption made them quiet.

The guys looked at me. Edward had again that pleading look that made me want me to hug him, but at the same time strangle him. Jasper wasn't like that. There was nothing about him I wanted to hug or ease. His straight mask was as usual hard and serious, nothing worried or pleading. It was another thing facing him with this, mostly because he didn't care about me like Edward did. I was more just another allied vampire to Jasper than a sister, but of course it wasn't always like that. I think he would care if I died, but to take it to that level was a bit over the top at this point.

I moaned, while baring my teeth in desperation.

"Don't act so bloody protective, Jasper. I know you don't worry about me, I can see it, and it's no use trying to use that as an excuse. Now, would everyone just stop smashing their noses down the mash of emotions that's supposed to be the little I have of a personal life? Please?" I said in one breath, making the last of it sound sharp as shattered glass. I tried to not make it sound pleading; I had to maintain the little self-respect I had left.

"Honestly, Ginny, I personally have no interest in your life, or who you are spending it with, but no less I am your brother, and I wouldn't like to see you hurt, even though you might not believe me. I just want you to know that this man is not what you may believe he is,"

Jasper didn't change his facial expression, he didn't need to. "You have to understand that I know Benjamin, better than most, anyways, and I don't trust him one second. I would say he is a slippery fish, without sounding completely cliché. I don't know what lies he may have fed you, but I wouldn't believe any of it if I were you. He has an ability, a silent one, but significant and traitorous at the same time. I'll admit I didn't know about it before Edward told me about it minutes ago, but the funny part is that it doesn't surprises me. Benjamin has always amazed and irritated me, since the first time I saw him. There has always been something about him I just couldn't figure out."

Jasper sounded as if he really believed what he said, and that he honestly tried to help me. One part of me didn't want to hear him out. I had finally found my soul mate. We were supposed to be together for the rest of… this world, and I didn't want anything to burst my bobble. Everything seemed so beautiful and perfect, like it hadn't ever been before. But the other part understood the importance of his words. It made me want to crawl up in the dirt under my feet and cry.

"If you really want to live in oblivion, of course I will not try to stop you. I'm only, as a brother, pointing out the stupidity of such a relationship-."

"Shut up!" Rosalie's hiss interrupted him, but she didn't care. She folded her arms around me. "How dare you speak to her like that? She loves him, Jasper! Can't you see that?"

After one minute of complete silence Rosalie pursed her lips and glowered at both Jasper and Edward. "How narrow-minded are you two? I don't know why you have to bother her with this shit. She doesn't want to hear your lies!" She screamed. I stood frozen with her arms protectively around my shoulders. So many emotions were swirling around in my mind, but at the same time I felt nothing.

Jasper looked at her blankly. He breathed evenly, while pursing his lips and tightening his left hand into a fist. Alice came to stand next to him. She took his fist in her hand to ease him. He suddenly looked at her, desperation in his face. He hugged her to his side, while raising his face to look at us again.

"I'm sorry, Ginny, I didn't think. Of course you must love him, that's the effect he has on those like you," Jasper said, with an expressionless face. Before I could answer him, he and Alice turned and ran off into the forest. I could've easily caught up with them, but I was shocked, even my mouth was hanging open. At the same time I could hear Rosalie swearing like an old sailor. I didn't care; I wanted answers.

I was in front of Edward before a second had passed and grabbed the top of his shirt. "What the hell did he mean with that? What did he mean with 'those like me'?" I was so angry I couldn't almost control myself, and the burning in my throat didn't make it much better. My nails ripped the top of his shirt to threads as I shivered with fury. I had to pretend it was Jaspers throat. If not I would've probably ran after him, despite the fact I was burning for knowing what he was talking about.

Edward's expression showed me he didn't like the situation much better than me, but I had given him an ultimatum. He wouldn't back out like Jasper had.

"Benjamin's ability," he started hesitant, clearly unsure about how to tell me. That made me anxious. I had judged wrong before. I should've listened to him from the beginning. "It isn't unknown to me. I've heard about vampires that could do almost the same as he, only his technique is much different than those I know of. He is a… What should I call it?" he was thinking so hard his eyebrows pulled together. Then he looked at me, with an answer on his lips: "He's an Illusionist."


	6. War of Emotions

6.

War of Emotions

Edward stopped, giving me time to think. An Illusionist? What was that supposed to mean? It was frustratingly non-helping. I longed for hitting something, but I knew I would regret if I hit Edward, so I tightened my hands till they nearly hurt.

"Edward?" Esme's voice was hard, but questioning. I had totally forgot she was there.

I shook my head violently, not denying, but in confusion. I wanted to make everything fit together in my head. But as I had experienced before, that didn't usually make it better.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I yelled. I was out of my good mind; crazy and hungry and anxious. Those three emotions didn't go well together in my head, clearly. Not only did my throat hunger for blood, but also my mind was nearly to explode by rage or annoyance that he didn't tell me right away. "_Edward!_" I screamed, as if in agony. "Would you _please_ just tell me?"

In a low, weary or maybe irritated voice Edward spoke: "It means he has the ability of making illusions," What did he think? That I was stupid?

"Oh, wow! You really are a genius," Rosalie hissed sarcastically. "I'm sure she hadn't figured that out ages ago already, Edward!" She had snatched the words out of my mouth. It was exactly what I'd had in mind. Couldn't he just skip the bull and tell me what this was all about?

"Be quiet, Rosalie!" He growled to his sister. Then he turned to me, his face serious and frustrated, but not angry. "Ginny, you don't understand." He pursed his lips. It almost looked like he was embarrassed to tell me, but I shoved such nonsense away immediately. It was irrelevant. He dragged another hand through his hair, and I wished he would stand still and tell me. Could it possibly be that hard?

"No, Edward, clearly I don't. Don't you think maybe if you had told me what is so Goddamn important, I would've understood what you were talking about?" My voice was sarcastic, but I concentrated on speaking slowly and correct. It seemed like that was the only thing that worked around here.

"Ginny, don't…" Esme started touching my arm to calm me down, but Edward interrupted us.

"Would you both be so kind to leave the two of us in privacy? I need time to explain this to her," I didn't like that he spoke about me as if I were a stupid child, but I shut my mouth.

Esme exhaled and seemed to be weighing if she should leave us alone or not, but after some seconds she grabbed Rosalie's arm. Rosalie on the other hand didn't go with that as easily.

"Don't think you can make her change her mind, Edward." She glared at him, her voice as ice. It was near to give me chills. "They love each other, don't they?" She said this with a perfect, expressionless face, and I could see how much Edward loathed her in that second. It almost made me jolly. Rosalie kept a smug smile on her face, because she knew that he knew that she was right.

"Be gone," Edward said slowly in a steady, but threatening voice. The two of them were only inches away from each other now, and I could see the halo of loathing, which hazed from their bodies. They looked like the fighters on pay TV, only 50 times more glorious. All we needed now was a bell to make this look like one of the hottest fistfights in the history.

Finally Rosalie started to back up. She seemed annoyed that she was the one who had to, but understood why. Even how much she was on my team, she knew more about this than I did, and even though she wanted to support me, I had to be told the truth.

When the two of them ran away into the forest behind us, the same direction that Alice and Jasper had used, Edward turned to me. His eyes were black obviously, but still sad.

"Now," he started and took a deep breath "I will speak of him and what troubles me about him. Yes, he is an Illusionist, but not the kind I have been confronted with before. The most usual Illusionists creates illusions to change the impression or picture of the world around us, like holding a paper up in front of our eyes with a different image on than that we are used to. And I'm not saying that Benjamin is not doing that, he is just so much more powerful and cautious about it." I grunted. I couldn't take him seriously with those serious eyes talking about something that seemed to me like stupid, humanly magic. That was in truth the only relationship I had to the phrase, and all in all, calling something like a vampire that—, it only seemed silly to me.

"What are you saying, Eddy?"

"He is not what he say he is. Do you want to know why Jasper said 'girls like you'? Because he knows that your 'lover' is using his illusions to make girls, like you, experience him as more— attractive than he really is," I gaped. "And not only that. He also can make you feel whatever he wants you to feel, but a bit different than Jasper can. Tell me, what was your first impression of him?" I was still numb stuck, and my eyes were wide open. I couldn't believe it. He, whom I loved, had_ made_ me feel the way I did? Somehow that sounded silly, but still I felt I didn't know if I could relate to that or not. The feelings I had were somewhat extreme, that was true, but they felt real. Sometimes I had spoken to Alice or Rosalie. They said that when Jasper controlled the room of emotions, it felt irritating or unreal. I was sure this was not like that, it couldn't be.

I concentrated, tried to remember, even though I knew it was there, it was like now that I needed it the memory was as if slipped away.

"I—," I started, not sure about anything at the moment. "My first expression of him was curiosity. I didn't know that there were other vampire males around here. Then he spoke, and I didn't wanted to hear any other voice than his ever again," I worked hard not to put too many emotions into this. I didn't want him to know all this, but somehow it felt that he should know it. But I skipped the part of his chest and body, it didn't seem important enough.

"He was so different, so dangerous, so beautiful. He always seems to keep something from me; an expression, something. The second emotion I felt with him there at the road was annoyance, as close as I could say my annoyance of Emmett. But he didn't do things that annoyed me the way Em does, it just annoyed me that he made me feel like that. Like it wasn't supposed to be like that." I grinned and "humph"-ed. I still felt as pathetic as the day before. The feelings were still the same. They were there. Somehow I had agreed to myself that I felt these feelings, and that's that, but now—. Was Edward saying that these emotions weren't mine, and that I didn't need to have them?

"Hm," was all Edward said. He didn't look at me, but his expression was hard, wondering and confused. This, whatever I had said, confused him, and I was not sure how to interpret that in this coherence. What did all this mean?

"I need to speak to Carlisle," he spoke fast to himself, and then his head whipped back in my direction, his eyes fixed in on mine. "We should hunt." He smiled, as if trying to ease my worried lines. It was useless. I hadn't been this tore apart since my first year. The last 24 hours had been like a century to me. That it all probably was for nothing angered me. It could've been a normal, sleepless night, filled with poetry or a one of those new books Alice had bought me. I was just so confused. One part of me struggled to keep its temper down, and the other was not sure either to sick its head in the sand and forget it all, or—. Or what?

---

My mind was still klutzy, even after our hunt. It had helped a bit. The frustrating feeling ran away. Luckily for me that I was so much driven by the emotions and feelings of my body. But still, I wasn't content. I needed his answers. I needed to hear something not worth crying over. I needed hope. Hope, that I wasn't totally fucked up by him, or by myself. I needed him. I needed love. I needed truth.

He was there when I opened the front door, sitting on the couth next to his brothers, talking and laughing with Carlisle about something. I could've sworn that I wanted to rip his head off by the first occasion, but as I laid my eyes on him once again I wanted nothing else than to kiss him, feel his hands in mine. That was not what he deserved and he should've known that. That made me only furious.

I kept my face strait. And was almost to flinch away as he put his eyes on me. My feelings were traitorous, and I wished him far away from me. If we had only not met, everything wouldn't have been like this. Ever.

"Ginny," he smiled in relieve as he saw me, but I didn't. My eyes were hard on his as I hissed: "How dare you?" with as much loathe and hate in my veins they were near to burst inside of me. Yes, how could he?

He didn't have any answer; he didn't even understand what I meant. "I'm talking about your small 'talents'. Did I forget to tell you that Edward read minds? Oh, shoot, I guess I did!" I was practically spitting in his face all my despise for him, and I wished it would burn him to his bones.

His expression was still confused, but I also saw a bit of weariness in them. What was on his mind? I wished Edward would tell me.

"Ginger—," he started hesitant, but I threw him off.

"No, I don't want to listen to you. You'll only bind me to you once more or whatever you are doing to me. I won't let you." I was so angry, my fist was tightened and my eyes shut close.

"I don't know what you are talking about!" He looked like he sincerely didn't know it, and that was close to make me even angrier. It was probably just him, screwing with my senses again.

"Why do you do it? Huh? Were you bullied in high school? Never got a girlfriend because you had such a low self-confident? What is it? Tell me! What could possibly make you crazy enough to do something like that?" My chin was shaking with rage.

"Ginny, please," he got up from the couch, and started to walk toward me.

"No! You are not the one who needs pity here. You of everyone should know that!" I turned my face away from him. Those perfect eyes were too smoldering on me. I didn't want him to look at me like that. "You made me love you! Oh, its so sick!" I growled and turned my back on him. I threw my hands in the air, buried my face in them, stroke my hair away from my face, held one hand over my mouth. I felt hysteric. It didn't make me feel better, it didn't do anything, it was just there; silly hand movements, good for nothing. I wanted to scream at him, make him feel what I felt. How could he do this to me?

"It's not what you think!" He yelled. And I wanted to listen to him, I wanted to know the truth, but that was what scared me most. The truth. Why would it be like that? Why should I be the frightened one? It was he who should feel what I felt, not me, not the victim. Oh, how thick I was, how proud!

"Then what?" Rosalie said behind me, but I wanted to silent her. This had nothing to do with her, and therefore she shouldn't be speaking.

"Shut up, Rose!" Jasper snapped, and in my thoughts my jaw dropped. I was much too angry to make it reality, but he really did surprise me. It occurred to me then, for the first time, they were on my team now, all of them. We were, after all, family.

Benjamin looked at them all, his and mine. They were there too, something I didn't really bother, but on the other hand neither needed.

I had turned my body around again to look at him, and them, and us, and I saw that he saw what I saw. He saw the bond within our family, and it made his face sad. How could this happen? I was sad because he was. Of course this was his bloody spell! Because to assume something else was of course ridiculous, and—.

"Yes. What, _Minni_?" I said with a sour edge to disguise my shaking voice. His eyes were again smoldering and even how much I hated it, I couldn't make my eyes see anything else.

"You have got to understand that I'm not responsible. These are your own feelings. Yes, it's true I have the ability to make girls_ more easily_ fall in love with me, but you—. You are different, Ginger, as you said, and even if I wanted to make you love me, I couldn't! You must believe me—." His attempt didn't make it better, only worse.

I started to fade off, my eyes and stomach hurt, and I knew even though I wanted tears in my eyes, they would not appear. But that didn't stop my sobbing, and before I knew it I was on my knees, tucking my arms into my center, trying to take control over myself. "I thought— I could trust you. I thought I loved you!" I screamed the last at him. My breath came heavily, and I pressed one palm to my mouth, biting myself as hard as I could.

He was in front of me then, sitting on the floor just like me. His arms hard around me like I never thought ever again. And I liked it, which was the worst of it. In a long, long moment we sat like that, and I was mad with myself, because I let him. I shouldn't let him.

"Ginger! I do love you, and you do love me! Please believe me—," he whispered in my ear. I could feel the tens atmosphere of the room hovering. I wanted to shout to everyone, to make them go away. It was no fair. This was no love story, Benjamin and mine. It was a tragic ending play. I guess that's what Shakespeare and I had in common.

"This is not me, I don't know how to make you believe me, but I haven't gotten to you since the first moment I saw you. You are different, as you already pointed out. That's why," he tried to insure me, tried to ease me up. Had I only been someone else, someone like maybe Alice or Bella, I believe he would've made it to the last note, but I wasn't. I was Ginger Black, the freak. That's why;

"No, you are right; I don't believe you," I only breathed, but he could still hear me. "Go away—,"

"_Ginger_! My power doesn't work on you! Damn, would you just listen!" He tucked me closer and harder into his arms, I could hear his sobbing, but I was blind for pleading. He was not to hold me, and I was not to love him. "Go away!" I shrieked. I prayed to God he would listen to me. I didn't have any more breath to neither speak nor scream with right now. If he would only do as I said.

* * *

**Okay, so my preface doesnt really work anymore.. i hadnt thought about it this way! Hm.. aint it just soo cool to for once impress yourself! I KNOW, i just love it;) **

**What do you think?:) Review, please!^_^ Its so much fun to see what you guys thinks!:) 3**


	7. Make Me Remember

7.

Make me remember!

Even I could predict the outcome of that fight. Of course I did, it was my idea.

I could still remember his face, the way it looked all twisted desperately with panic and sadness and fury. I wish I couldn't, even though I would never dream about forgetting him. My job was to remember him; at least that was what I expected of myself. It had been my choice, my choice alone. To feel a little better I could tell myself that it wasn't entirely my fault; that I didn't know that back then; that I had been wrong. But what difference did it make? None. I wished I could stop tormenting myself with the memory that was put on repeat, again and again inside of my head. Of course that was not how it worked. I could not tell my brain what to block out, what to erase, or anything.

My mind was a whole lot different from the human-brain I had once had. My brain was so beautiful, so perfect; none, not even the smallest thought could ever get lost in there. That was one of the many reasons I wanted to shoot the brain out of my head. It was so in the way all the time. All the things it kept reminding me about. It was like a crappy computer; showing the same pop-ups over and over, even if you kept X-ing them. It was near to make me go mad.

The one moment that was stuck in my mind was the very last image I had of my Benjamin. To think his name, to think about him, sent hot vibes throughout my entire system. It almost made me dizzy, if vampires could have such a feeling. That was why-.

He was so beautiful, sitting on his bike, staring at me, his eyes saying more than a thousand words ever could. I could feel my eyes burning, but I remembered the feeling I had; I'd wanted him to go. That was true, but the purpose was all wrong back then. All I wanted was the truth. Was that too much?

I had turned my back on him; it was unbearable to watch him. And as I stood there, barely breathing, waiting for something to happen, I could hear him kicking life into the Harley and drive away from me. I didn't do anything; nobody did anything. I hate Edward for that. That was when he should've grabbed my shoulders and shook some reasons into me. He should've made me listen, made me understand everything. It was his responsibility. Or that's what I'd like to believe.

He could've… he _should've_ told me! It was so cold hearted not to; to just let me stand there alone, with my arms around my shoulders, imagine-crying for a reason both he and I knew was no longer a reason. I was such a stupid cow.

Benjamin had really loved me; really, really loved me. That's what Edward had told me, later on, when he was long gone. I'd rather he had not. It was so painful to know.

Like it did any difference now. I was crushed, devastated, and the only thing I could grasp onto was the thoughts of him, and how he'd loved me. It gave me hope, like a candle in the dark. Everything else was a blur, unnecessary emotions that helped no one. I learned fast to ignore them, act as cold as possible, to spare my self. If nothing I was selfish.

The one thought that really freaked me out was the fact that it was 2 years, 4 month and 30 days since he'd left, and that I remembered it with all details intact. Every time I did something, anything at all, I thought about him, and that I could've been doing that or that with him. The only thing that wasn't right was that… well, I wasn't doing it with him. That was the problem.

---

"Emmett," I said, as I came behind him. I think he jumped 3 meters. All of a sudden I'd made people jumpy around me, something I wasn't really used to. I think it was the fact that I attend sneak up on them, but it wasn't my fault. I just didn't make as much noise as usual anymore. I didn't really care, though. Nothing was important anymore.

"My little sister, whom I love so deeply! What can I help you with?" He said jokingly. If it had been 2 years, 4 month and 31 days ago I would've beat him, but not now. Emmett's attempt on annoying me had once again failed. I could see the faint lines of worry in his forehead, the way they always were, but I didn't care.

"Emmett, where–?"

"Ginny, don't you want to join me for a shopping trip today? I just saw myself buying these gorgeous couple of pants!" suddenly Alice was at my side, tucking my hands in hers. She could barely stand still. Dancing or tiptoeing next to me, she looked like it was a matter of life or death. I wanted to join her, but it didn't matter if I ever bought clothing again. He would still be gone. Long, long gone.

"Thank you for the offer, Alice, but I'd rather not," as I spoke I could see her little face crush. Just like Emmett, she now had deep wrinkles in between her eyebrows and forehead. It made me guilty, but somehow that too wasn't really important. It was selfish, stupid, silly–, but that was how it was. I was not what I had been, and they should've understood that.

I tried to fake a faint smile, but I don't think any of them believed it. "Ginger," Alice breathed, almost as if she had tears in her voice. I shook my head. I didn't want to listen to her.

"No, Al. I'm sorry. Some other time maybe," my smile now was more convincing than the other, but I couldn't seem to understand what the difference was. Why should I have to fake a smile only to please them? What difference did it make?

Alice raised her hand and touched my skin lightly, like she did sometimes. I was cold, emotionless inside, and I felt glad about it. It was troublesome to have all that emotions hovering over yourself all the time. It made you unsharpened, vulnerable. Even though I wanted to look down at her and smile with that smile, so she wouldn't look so messed up, I just couldn't find a reason anymore, and that was near to freak me out.

I needed Edward, and I knew that. It was too long since last time.

"Al, do you know where to find Eddy?" using nicknames was also hard for me. It was too personal. I didn't feel like being personal to anyone save Benjamin.

She shrugged, and pursed her lips: "I think he's upstairs, with…" she stopped speaking and even though I couldn't understand her reason, it seemed unnecessary.

"With Bella?" I said hinting; again I tried to fake a smile. It was hard, I just had nothing to smile for anymore, and I found it therefore strange when I felt like I had to. It was like some sort of reflex or instinct, something I could read off their faces.

"Yes. Why?" Rosalie said behind me. I turned slowly to look her in the eyes. I hadn't heard her come. One of the good things about Rosalie was that I didn't have to create any mask in front of her, she saw right through it anyway.

"Non of your business, Rosalie," I said, my voice flat, and walked past her into the living room.

"Are you going to ask him again? How long is it since last time? One week? Two?" she was in front of me then, holding my arms, looking straight into my eyes.

"You should at least try to forget, Ginny! He is gone; you will never see him again. What good will it do to do this over and over?" I felt like getting her off of me. That was not words I willingly listened to, and after 2 years of trying to persuade me she should've known that.

"Rosalie, get your hands off of me," I said slowly, dryly, but threatening. She backed up instantly, and maybe I should've felt guilty. She'd only tried to protect me, but I didn't need anyone's protection. I needed to remember him, my Benjamin. He would always be mine as long as I remembered him. "What makes you think I give a shit about what you think is best for me?" my expression was cold, but straight. I didn't need to show her any of my feelings, and no feelings were involved right now, so why bother?

She stayed sharpened, didn't either show any feelings, but I knew she was hurt. She just didn't want me to be better than her. That was all. "I know you don't."

"So stop it. It won't make any difference; not now."

"C'mon, Ginger! What's happened to you?" Rosalie suddenly threw her arms around me, held me tightly, but I kept my face clean. She'd clenched her teeth together, as if she tried to maintain herself. If it had been more than 2 years ago I would probably have started crying with her.

"I don't know, Rosalie, I honestly don't." I whispered. She was so close, and it felt like it would be natural for me to enfold my arms around her as well, but I couldn't see why.

Suddenly I could feel a new couple of small hands grasping my hooded sweater from behind. I threw a glance over my shoulder and saw Alice standing there. She looked like she was going to pieces. I exhaled slowly, trying to understand what to do in these situations. Maybe I should've hugged her, or talked to her. I wasn't sure at all.

"Ginny? Alice? Rosalie?" Carlisle had stepped out of his office just then, and stood now watching over us. I actually felt something for Carlisle, the way I'd always felt for my father, and now him later on. Respect it was, and I was glad of it. It made me feel less of a freak, a little more normal like the others, but I knew even know I wouldn't ever become normal, not as long as Benjamin wasn't here to hold me. It was as if some of me had vanished with him when I had sent him from me. I knew it was my fault, I never said it wasn't, but I couldn't help it either.

So I got out of my sisters grip, and walked out of the living room. I stood in front of the front door a moment or two, but opened it finally and stepped outside. I knew they were all watching me as I did so; Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, Carlisle, even Jasper, who had entered the room with Alice, but had kept his mouth shut all along. That was in itself odd, I was sure he didn't like Alice to touch me, after what had happened, but I didn't dwell about it. It didn't really matter.

Outside it was pouring down, as if the sky had seen what had happened inside our house and figured they would team up with the others. I didn't care. It was rather nice actually, to have the water run down my face like that. I closed my eyes and remembered. I remembered his smile, the way he had pronounced the letter "N" or "R", the sweet flow in his voice, with the strange set of tone that only was beautiful in his voice. I remembered how it felt when he'd hold me, the warmness of his skin on mine.

And suddenly the water running down my face was not only water. It felt funny when the drops slid down my cheeks. It felt like tears, like I was really crying, and it make my knees break. I was there, sitting on the ground in front of our house, my head lifted to the sky, and felt the real tears running down my face for the first time in a long time. It made me moan, scream, because he was not here. My Benjamin was not here to hold me, to make me feel safe. He would never come back and I would never see him again. It was somehow relieving that I could finally grieve over the man I loved and missed, really grieve, like a girl like me should.

As I sat there the hours flew by like something insignificant. Time had no meaning without him. It might feel longer since I'd seen him, or shorter, but all in all it really didn't matter. The only important thing was that he wasn't there, and beside that nothing mattered. When you lived forever time didn't have the same significant as before. It didn't matter, not when you were alone.

The door opened and closed behind me, and even though I knew he was there, watching me, I didn't turn around. I didn't speak to him, but he still came over to me, and placed a hand on my shoulder, as he sat down behind me in the same pit of water. His presence was good, somehow. It didn't take long before I grabbed his hand and clung to it as I rocked myself and cried out in the rain.

Edward did say anything, and that was good. I needed this moment, I needed to cry, and he knew that.

It did take a while for me to calm down; the sky was even almost cleared up before I was finished. The rain had stopped though, and then it seemed silly to be sitting like that.

I turned therefore around to look at Edward. His expression was calm, but expecting. He knew exactly what I was going to say.

"Edward," I started slowly, but seriously. "Make me remember."


	8. BENJAMIN: what life after her?

8.

Benjamin:

…What life after her?

_(4 month after I left her…)_

She touched my face with her loathsome hands. I wished she would stop touching me, it felt wrong when it wasn't _her_ hands. I still couldn't stop thinking about _her_, the black beauty I had met that one sunny day in the forest. I remembered our night together, and I longed for _her_ touch, not this monster's.

"My beautiful, baby," she whispered in my ear, and I wanted to vomit. But what could I do? _She_ didn't want me. I understood _her_; I wouldn't have wanted me. I was so gross, so fake, so pathetic. If I had thought _she_ had wanted it I would've run back to her right now, but she didn't want me. That was the problem.

"Come to me, my Benjamin!" I was about to tell her that I was not and would never be hers, but I didn't dare or care to do so. She didn't need to know about _her_, she mustn't.

Maria smiled her vicious smile; all her deadly, bright, white teeth were presented, and I almost shuddered, but played along. There was nothing else for me to do. As I bend down over the small, brown-headed female, I close my eyes and saw _her_ face in front of me; the beautiful face of the woman whom I loved. Her beautiful, warm eyes, filled with love and her beautiful figure, the way she had laid before my eyes that night. It made me moan, and I got off of the woman and the wrong pair of lips pressed towards mine. It made me shudder. She was not the woman I needed.

Maria laughed a vicious laugh and asked me: "What is wrong?" as I walked over the floor of our rented motel-room, and threw a vase across the room as I walked passed it. It had been placed on the drawer, conveniently waiting for someone to break it. It didn't really calm me down. I was so restless. It was like I hadn't heard her.

I peaked through the drapes covering the small, plain windows, in despair of something to watch, and curiosity, but there was nothing out there my ears hadn't caught already. Some children ran over the lawn behind the small houses, and I envied them their ignorance and innocence.

Maria's hands suddenly wrapped around my waist, and dragged me away from the window, and as she started to kiss my neck I felt a feeling of hopelessness sink in. I closed my eyes, and surrendered myself to her. It didn't matter. _She_ was gone.

-

_(1 year after I left her…)_

Maria was out, fetching food, and I knew it'd be some time before she came back. I got my sheets and pencils, and sat down by the small table by the window.

It was rainy outside today, and I was glad we had broken into the old house for the weekend. I enjoyed rain just as much as my sheets did.

By the time I took the pencil in my hand I had a million pictures on the inside of my head, and I had a hard time deciding which one I wanted to draw. There were millions of angles, millions of expressions, millions of poses I wanted to use, but in the end I just drew. I drew the one picture after the other. I tried to make it look like _her, _like how I remembered _her_. But I always managed to do something wrong. They weren't becoming _her_ the way I wanted them to do.

I closed my eyes firmly, and concentrated. I couldn't see what I did wrong. This had never been a problem to me before. I always drew everything exactly like I imagined it. But this girl… there was something different about _her_ expression I just couldn't grasp. It really annoyed me.

In irritation I laid my hand hard down on all the pictures I had drawn, and wiped them off of the table, so they spread all over the wooden floor.

I sat in silence for a moment after I had calmed myself again.

Suddenly an idea started to take shape in my head, and I got up from the stool to walk out the door and down the block, where I had seen a small pharmacy. I wasn't sure how big it was, I crossed my fingers.

As I stood outside of the small store, I could see the boy standing behind the desk. It looked like he was half-a sleep, and I wondered if it was awfully cruel to wake him up at this time. That was when I watched the clock, and saw that it was actually no good time for any human who wasn't drunk to stay up. But then I shook my head, because it was stupid to think like that, like a human. I didn't need to think about that; he was worthless, and if I had been hungry I had probably killed him.

I then remembered how _she_ had been feeding; on animals, and I wondered if it would make me a better person if I tried the same. That thought made me frown and roll my eyes. It was so unnecessary.

The doorbell rang, and the poor lad jumped abruptly from his sleep. I made him see me as a completely normal guy, one he would not be afraid of, and surely never remember.

"Have you gotten any color-pencils?" I asked, and made sure he was not startled by the question, or thought it weird coming from a young man such as myself.

"Yes," he said, but he still looked a little dazed. That annoyed me. Was I getting sloppy? No, that wasn't possible. But I didn't bother to think more about it, and ignored his glare, instead I asked for some yellow ones, and he went to get those in the store for me to buy.

By habit I had dragged the hood on my sweater up, which also was the only protection I had against the rain, and I didn't take it off. When the boy, Chuck, I had caught it from the nameplate on his chest, came back, I imagined grabbing his neck and sucking for a second, just for the mere pleasure of it.

I'd closed my eyes to keep myself calm. It was much too dangerous to think like this when I was around a human, and there was something in the boy's expression, his unawareness, that made me feel pity for him. It wasn't his fault he was at work this night, and certainly not that I was to drop by. I didn't even feel hungry, so I shove that thought aside, and thanked for the pencils before I turned and headed out of the store.

Back in the house I sat down on the floor. The room was dark, something that somehow annoyed me. I didn't know why, but I just had to get some wood and fire up in the one big hearth in the room. I took up one sheet, and studied it accurate. That one pictured _her_ looking up at me, they way _she'd_ looked when _she_ was lying on my chest, looking up at me with those beautiful, golden eyes of _hers_. The way I remembered it they were mesmerizing, but it didn't work out on my paper. That had never been a problem to me after I'd become vampire, so I wasn't quite sure what to do about it.

I wasn't sure at all if this idea of mine really would work, and I had never worked with colors before.

As I pressed one pencil to the paper lightly and tried to do what I knew how to, I figured there were millions of options and millions of colors for me to get from this one pencil. It was nothing like charcoal, or gray pencils, and it triggered me. I concentrated as I started to draw at this new, spectacular way I had never done before. It was a shame, I figured. This was such a fantastic technique. Just the thought that I had lost this made me wonder what else I'd never tried. How much of the present had I lost in the hurry?

It didn't take long before the first picture was finished, and I smiled relieved at the result. It looked much, much more like _her_. All I had done was adding colors to _her_ eyes, and now _her_ golden, smoldering gaze lay upon me, almost like that night.

I hugged the picture to my chest and cried without tears because of the girl I loved and missed.

-

_(1 year and 8 month after I left her…)_

We ran through the forests some miles out side of San Francisco. Maria had picked up some "friends" of hers I hadn't met before, and honestly I did not care. She could socialize with whomever she wanted. It wasn't like she cared what I thought either.

I was silently thinking about how this had happened, how I'd end up together with Maria again. It was pretty certain that she was the reason for that. I had been with her for over 1 and half a year now. I thought about how I met her back then. It was weird; like she caught up with me the first moment I left _her_. It was faintly a week after I'd left, and I was devastated. And then there she was, greeting me like a good, old friend. I didn't think much about it then. I was too stressed out to think it thoroughly through, and I just sort of went along. I couldn't see why. Why did I do that? It felt wrong to me, to be so controlled in a way I did not like.

I wondered what she needed me for. Certainly she had plenty of attractive males following her around, so apparently it was not for my look she wanted me around.

And suddenly I wondered if _she_ was thinking about me. She was always there, watching every move I did from inside my mind, but I hadn't thought about it like that before.

_-_

_(2 years and 3 weeks after I left her…)_

I breathed hard rather from fear than exhaustion, as I ran from the vision, from the blood bath. It didn't help. Her face was as stuck with glue on the inside of my eyelids, and I saw nothing else. I saw how she twitched, reached out for me, waited for me to save her, her golden hair dyed red of all the blood spilled. But I didn't save her; I didn't do anything to save my Jessica. I couldn't. How could I even hesitate? It should've been obvious. She was my wife, and she'd trusted me. And I'd let her down. I couldn't forgive myself.

But less than anything I couldn't forgive her, she who had killed my wife. She, who had killed my only joy in life, just to satisfy her own blood thirst and envy. She had misused her power over me, and I would never forgive her this.

I wish I could kill her. I wish I could burry my hands and nails in her throat and pull as hard as I could. I practically owed every damned soul she had hurt in her life, everyone she had killed, everyone she had terrorized.

Maria, she is a monster and disserves nothing less, I thought to myself as I opened my eyes. But then... what did I do lying in her arms this night? Why could she freely reach out to touch my face with her slim, disgusting hands? Why would I kiss her hands when she did so? It was unexplainable. I was so confused. I remembered the sight, and cringed as I thought about her, and the way she had been slaughtered.

I sighed heavily and felt her hand on my chest, but my mind was already another place, far, far away in my long lost past...

_The year was 1917, and somewhere in the world humans fought bloody amongst each other. Far away from all that my wife and I were just married. We were in the forest outside of New Jersey, lying naked on a bed of moss while the sun sank down under the horizon. There was no other honeymoon any of us needed. I looked at her as the last ray of sunshine played in her hair and skin. The diamond necklace I'd given her was blinking faintly between her breasts, and she was breathtaking._

_My hands caressed her collarbone, and I bent over to kiss her. As I started to move over her, I heard a soft laughter linger deep in the forest behind us. I jumped to my feet, and felt panic spread throughout my system. I knew instantly whom that laughter belonged to. It was Maria._

_My wife got up behind me and took my hand. I hugged it in mine tightly, and stepped in front of her, ready to protect her with my life._

"_Honey," Maria murmured as she entered the clearing. My lips pulled back over my teeth in a reflex and I sneered like an animal, but I was afraid it was more like a frightened animal than a strong one. And as I thought, Maria laughed again. The sound escaping her mouth was clear and light and it almost sounded kind hearted. _

"_Who's your new friend, darling? Is that the bitch you left me for?" It wasn't hard catching the rage in her voice, even though a delighted smile played about her lips. "May I say, I do think your taste in women has gotten you down finally, but I guess that's how it is when you can have ANYONE," Maria giggled, and I started to get sincerely scared. Where was she headed with all this? I saw two males standing beside her, maybe some of her soldiers, I wasn't sure._

_What happened next went fast, too fast for any human to catch. One of her guards ran over to me, he grabbed my chin and threw me out of the way. I felt by the way he moved and his strength that he was younger than a year, no doubt about it. Before I'd gotten to my feet, Maria was standing in front of Jessica, her hand around my wives throat. Jessica didn't even scream. She was a lot younger than Maria, but weaker, and she didn't stand a chance against all three of them._

_Maria dropped her, but before Jessica hit the ground one of the males got her and started to rip up her body, but somehow she managed to reach her hand out to me. It happened all too fast. I was frozen in place, mad at myself for not keeping my own promise, mad with Maria for following me like this, and furious now for what she did. But still, I was frozen, did nothing... NADA! Some blood hit my face, and as a blood-red tear they ran down my cheek and hit my hand. Before Maria had turned to me after killing my wife, I backed up and ran faster than I'd ever done in my life before._

_I breathed hard rather from fear than exhaustion, as I ran from the vision, from the blood bath. It didn't help. Her face was as stuck with glue on the inside of my eyelids, and I saw nothing else. I saw how she twitched, reached out for me, waited for me to save her, her golden hair dyed red of all the blood spilled. But I didn't save her; I didn't do anything to save my Jessica. _

The reason I ran away was that I would not kill Maria. I knew that, and she knew that. If she had gotten to me and wanted to kill me I would not have done anything that would have put her life in danger. I guessed that was why I laid with her now, why she was allowed to touch me, why she kissed me.

Suddenly I broke her off; I couldn't stand to have her touch me anymore. As I stood up from the bed and dragged my feet behind me over to the ceiling-tall window, I heard a smooth laughter behind me, the same that had surprised us in the clearing that night. I tightened my hand around my neck, and felt a rising feeling in my throat, as if I was going to throw up. Nothing came, but the feeling lingered. It was a bright world outside our room today, and I stepped aside just as the sunbeams peaked inside the curtain.

But there was one thing helping me now that I had not had before; I had Ginger now, and she was my only happiness in this dark world I'd created around myself. And I was scared. I was scared to my bones that Maria would come and do the same to her. I doubted she wouldn't if I gave her a chance. I loved Ginny so much it hurt to be away from her, but still I couldn't make myself return to her. It was much too convenient for Maria if I did. But I neither could stay here in this gloomy condition. I needed light in my life again.

"Maria," I said hesitant.

"Yes, my darling?" I didn't look at her, but I could hear in her voice that she was amused.

"It's over!" I turned to her, and jumped backward out of the window. When I reached the ground ran as fast as I could. I was on the move again, free for the first time in many months, and if I weren't to see my beloved, I would at least find my brothers.


	9. BENJAMIN: Mirror, mirror on the wall

9.

BENJAMIN:

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

_(2 years and 8 months after I left her…)_

My eyes dully followed the clouds on their journey across the sky as they flied by many, many feet above my head. The sky was so peaceful, so quiet, as if it was lying still staring back at me. Thinking like that always gave me the creeps, and I tucked the hooded sweater more tightly around me as I folded my arms across my chest. I was lonely, I was pathetic, I was concerned, and I felt as sorry for myself as ever.

I wondered as always what _she_ might be up to, but I never found any good answer on that question. Some special ones were particularly often occupying my head; had she gotten herself another man? Was I forgotten? I again didn't have the answers on those, and I neither knew what to do. I hadn't eaten in weeks, and the other guys had clearly started to worry about me, but they respected me enough to leave me be. I needed the time to think, and wonder, and decide.

It killed me that I didn't know whether or not she was over me; whether or not she was missing me as I missed her, always. But I couldn't and wouldn't return to her. I wouldn't be able to stand it if she had forgot about me. That pain would be twice the pain I felt by just missing her. I was so selfish. And of course, it was the everlasting fear that I would lead Maria to her. I just couldn't ignore it.

I grabbed the arms of my sweater tight and I didn't care if the fabric was torn. Ever since I left her I'd been wearing sweaters, never wanted to expose my upper body to the world. I didn't want anyone to look at me and desire me anymore. I wanted her, and if not I wouldn't want anyone.

"Minni?" I heard Dai call for me. I didn't reply. It was unnecessary, and Dai was a troublesome vampire; even if he seemed 30 years or so older than me in general, I was much more mature than him, as I also was born a century earlier. Ever so, what can you do about family?

I lay on my back in the grass and listened to the forest around me. I heard a Squirrel who desperately tried to find its nuts, some birds twittering around me in the trees, and I felt their peace. For a swift moment I wished I was ignorant, and lived my life as a human maybe; had found myself a sweet girl, gotten married, maybe children and grand children, lived my life as a completely normal human, and died as I turned my 80est year. My hand flied up and slapped my face hard. What was I thinking? Human?

"God, Minni, you have too much leisure!" I growled to myself, and sighed. It was true I couldn't think straight anymore. All there was was _she_. I jumped on my feet, and started to move myself towards my brothers.

As I got closer to them I could hear the radio play some music, and I knew the song.

"_There's something that I can't quite explain_," a male sang, and I froze. I saw Dai getting sitting up in the Morgan, but it was as if he was a ghost, not important, and I could see right through him.

"Minni! My boy, my brother, my love!" he sang cheerfully, and if the radio hadn't been occupying my thoughts I would've snapped something rude back at him. "Where have you been? We've been worried sick!" he looked at me with a hard expression on his face, as a worried mother catching her son at home in the night, long past his curfew. In a minute I stood in front of him, my hand around his neck, and my other hand grabbed the radio. I was sure as I held it in my hand I would crush it. The memories it brought made me close my eyes and breathe slowly through my nostrils. It was painful, and I felt my chest was filled with sorrow, and my eyes started to ache.

"Brother," Bjorn said slowly and placed a hand on the arm that I held Dai with. I breathed hard as the song in the unharmed radio ended, and the host announced the new song. My hand around Dai's neck slowly released, but I held the hand at his shoulder and leaned myself on him as I lowered my head and started to cry without a tear.

"It's okay, Benjamin!" Dai said, a little awkwardly, and patted my back comfortably.

"No, it's not!" I said suddenly, with gritted teeth, and stepped away from him. I took my hand to my temples and tried to control myself.

"Don't you see?" I screamed at them, after a minute of silence. "This is anything but okay!"

"Benjamin! We understand," Bjorn said with a concerned look, and I bit my lower lip in despair. I was afraid I would start crying again, but I managed to keep my breath under control, and it wasn't like tears would fall from my eyes every second either.

"I don't think you do," I said. I couldn't meet his eyes, so I eyed the ground as I said it. "How many soul mates have you ever seen getting killed? No, you guys, you do not understand my sorrow!" I had to exhale with a moan as I came to think about it again. It was so hard, thinking about it. I had been so weak, so terribly, terribly weak, and cowardly.

"And I am so afraid," I breathed. I didn't manage to finish the sentence. I supported my head with my hands, breathing hard, thinking about the both of them, the women I loved. How afraid I was of exposing Ginger for the same destiny as Jessica. No, I wouldn't let it happen. And therefore I would not go to her; I would never see her again.

"Minni, my brother," Rany suddenly said, coming from behind, and left his hands on my shoulders. I didn't know if it was to ease me or something else. His head leaned against my neck, and I was suddenly glad of this strange comfort my brother provided me with. For once his long, white hair wasn't tied up in a ponytail. It rested on my shoulder when he bent over me, as if it was mine, not his.

"I am sorry," he merely said, and I could feel he was honest. "But you can't hide. Don't you see that, Benjamin? You will never feel any better as long as you don't settle your mind. Please, for all of us…"

"No!" I couldn't bare to hear him say it. He couldn't demand such a thing from me. He couldn't…

"Get real!" he said once, silencing my thoughts, and I stood like a dumb lamb in front of him. He wasn't more than a couple of centimetres taller than me, but now he seemed to tower over me. "Minni, if you don't have the power to face her, I will personally drag you to her feet, and demand her that she takes you back," now he slightly smiled as he said it, and I didn't know what to do. It went on and on inside my head. I was afraid. I was so afraid.

"I love her," I heard myself mutter, like a punished dog. "It's too dangerous!" I then snapped at him. "You have no idea! You don't know how it is to watch your beloved get torn to pieces by the one creature you fear and love more than any other. Do you?" his eyes pierced mine, but I didn't bow for it, because I knew I was right.

"No," he said finally, but his hand grabbed my shoulder tight by my neck as I turned to walk away from him. "Don't let her win. Minni, you know better than that! I know you do," he looked at me now with concerned eyes, like Bjorn just before. I felt like showing off a smile, but wasn't even able to present a faint one. Nothing was worth smiling for anymore, as it hadn't been for the last 2 years.

_(2 years, 8 months and 2 weeks after I left her…)_

It was night. I lay on a bed for the first time in months. The rain drumming against the window reminded me unbelievably much about the night too long ago, the night I sat in an old house with colour-pencils and a bunch of sheets in front of me. I didn't have any pencils or any sheets now, and I wouldn't have used them if I had. I would do anything else than draw this night. I couldn't make myself not think about _her_, as any other minute of any other day. I loved her, so that was obviously unavoidable. I wished suddenly there was a way to make myself not love her, how much pain I would be spared. But I realized that was not near what I wanted. I remembered the coldness in my heart when I first left Maria and her _soldiers_; the coldness of not loving anything at all, nothing but cold fear and chaos ruling my head and thoughts and actions. I didn't want that for anything in the world, not even for this.

I lay with my hands behind my head, spread out on the bed like any other blanket, staring up into the dark wood that created the ceiling above me. I could hear my brothers in the room next door, laughing and talking as they dried out a couple of girls they'd picked up in the town earlier today. The burning and aching in my dry throat was inevitable, still I couldn't bare my teeth to either of their throats as they were presented to me earlier. I didn't know what was wrong with me, other than a broken heart. My inside was cold, and my needs were dim, as they weren't really important at this stage. Had I known how I could've killed myself, but I couldn't ask my brothers to do it, it was more than any of them would ever do, and they loved me too much.

"Minni," Rany opened the door and closed it behind him. I could smell the girls' blood on his face, and I felt the urge to sprint forward, to be a part of that pleasure, but _she_ wouldn't have wanted it, and so I didn't. "Here. I know you for some goddamn reason don't want it, but you have to take _some_. My brother, please. There are no sanity in going on like this," he spoke slowly and smooth, and held a cup half-full of blood towards me, as if he tried to trick it into me like some child not willing to eat his soup. I didn't feel offended or annoyed by his attempt, I was only sad. Sad, that I couldn't follow his request. Sad, that I couldn't quench only a bit of the hunger I felt within my body and soul, both for the love and the blood.

"No," I said plainly, though it might've sounded stubbornly. I didn't really care, and I was sure he wouldn't give up either.

"So I have to push it down your throat? Is that it?" he said with a mocking grin on his face, which, before all of this, would've made me grin and roll my eyes at him. Now it did nothing to me, and again I felt sad of it. It wasn't like I wanted to be insensitive; I had no choice.

"Let it go, Rany," I looked at him for a second before I focused in on the ceiling again. His light hair was again in a tight ponytail. This made his cheekbones look more significant on his face than when it wasn't, and I could see his full lips purse in the dim light. I wondered what he must've been thinking of me, of my pathetic stubbornness.

"C'mon, Minni, you really think I'd give up? Then you've grown ignorant, and that's something I've never known you to be. I really thought you knew me better," he chuckled once, and looked at me with one brow pulled up from his eye, a huge grin playing about his lips. It made him look like he had an idea or two, which usually was right. I didn't care to wonder about what he had in mind now.

"I know you, Rany, but don't expect that you know _me_ anymore. There's something terribly wrong with me," I barely spoke the last words. "That girl… Rany, I can't live without her! And yet, that's what I've been doing the past 2 years. I mean, if you can call this living," I breathed hard, like a sigh, and shook my head, as I sat up in the bed, throwing my feet over the edge so they hit the floor. I leaned my head in my hands, and swallowed hard.

"I care for you, and I know these aren't the words of comfort you wanna hear right now, but I do love you, as my brother, and I can't let you go on like this. I can't bear to see it. Don't you understand this, Minni? Seeing you like this, it hurts me," he said seriously, and these weren't exactly words I often heard from him. "It hurts us," he corrected himself, including the rest of our brothers.

He stared me down a minute, and I felt small and useless. Then he sighed too, and sat down beside me. He left his hand on the back of my shoulders, as if easing me, but all I could feel was the hurt in my throat for the substance in the cup he held in his left hand. As if the last months hadn't had any meaning at all, I grabbed it and emptied it in my mouth. Finally the aching eased a little, leaving me with a release I hadn't felt in months, but all I found myself doing was crying. I started to scream, like there was nothing left in this world living for. It felt like I was left in a big, black emptiness of nothing, and I was all alone, even if my brother sat by my side, supporting me with all the love he had. I was alone.

"Benjamin!" Rany growled into my ear, and tightened his hold around my neck. It was like I couldn't hear him; nothing but _she_ was occupying my head. I could smell her unique fragrance in my nose, and I could hear her soft laughter linger in the air. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I face her? It felt stupid that I sat like this only hours away from my loved one. For that tenth of a second I was sure I could go to her, I was sure she would look at me with the same beautiful eyes filled with love, and I was sure we would live together forever.

It took me less than a second to realize what I told myself was only lies, and that in my anxiety I had gotten to my feet. Now I sank back down on the bed again, and I felt the little hope I'd just created for myself leave me. It took me less than a second to remember Maria, and how dangerous it was for _her_, and how important it was that I didn't do anything irrational.

"What do you want me to do?" I whispered to the palms of my hands, and I took a deep breath through my nose and out my mouth. I remembered how that eased me when I was a human. I remembered how easy it was back then, and how much I missed it.

Rany kept holding his hand at my neck, like he was about to start massaging me. It kept me present, and I looked up at him. His expression was almost blank, but the little smile on his lips made his entire face light up. He chuckled once, and I heard it was plain, not mocking, nor sad.

"Minni, you are such an idiot!" he hugged me to his side for a moment, and I felt his grip was a little too tight, like he didn't wanted to lose me or something like that. It was absurd, though I felt a little something in side me telling me he was important to me, and that I needed him.

"What?" I murmured, and looked at him with confused eyes.

"That, right there was what I wanted you to do. You needed that blood, even how much you hate yourself for it now. That was all I wanted you to do, but you need to do much more than that. I can see it in your eyes; you are not satisfied without that girl, Minni. You need to face your fear, but I can't tell you what it is or how to do it. That is something that must come from inside," he tightened his hand into a fist and hit it lightly to the middle of my chest. It made me smile, a smile I hadn't felt on my face for a very long time. I even laughed a little, and I put my arm around him, and hugged him tightly. His head leaned against my shoulder, his forehead deep in my neck and I sighed.

_(1 hour and 28 minutes later…)_

I looked at myself. The mirror hanging on the dirty motel wall was unclear and the glass was shattered at the end, but it wasn't like I cared. I stood like that, palms leaning on the edges of the sink, staring into my own reflection. I didn't like what I saw there. The man, boy, whatever, stared like dead back at me. The blonde hair was greasy and shaggy, and more dirty white than blonde. The skin was grey and less coloured than ever. The blood-red colour my eyes possessed was the only clear colour you could actually see in this picture. Everything else seemed foggy and grey.

I bit my lip, wondered if any blood would appear if I bit hard enough. It made me laugh at myself; _like hell it would_. My eyes moved down my throat and stopped by the tattoo. The eyes of the demon stared at me, and the big monstrous grin almost gave me the creeps, like it always did. I rubbed it with my fingertips once, as I always did when I looked into a mirror. The movement remembered me of _her_ touch that night too long ago, the way she had let her fingers dance over its ugly face. I was afraid it would go away with the time. Of course it didn't. Again I had to smile of my foolishness; I was just an overgrown kid.

I let my head down, staring down in the sink bellow me. Dark marks of olden and unclean water marked it, like fingers scarping it from the rims down into the drain. It reminded me of blood. A hand drained in blood, blood of my long dead wife; the hand of a murderer. In a moment of desperation I turned on the water with a shaky hand. I didn't know what was happening to me. There were too many emotions at once, and I didn't know how to interpret them all. I splashed some water in my face, and remembered how it used to ease me as a human. Why did I think so much of my human time these days? It was annoying. It brought up emotions I hadn't felt in decades, and it made me even more unsure.

The water dripped off my hair, and the deep sink made the little noise echo in the room.

What would I do? Rany said I could only figure it out myself. Did that mean I was screwed if I didn't know what to do? No, I had to figure it out. I couldn't stand to be like this, in this hollow state of nothingness. But I couldn't do this without her. I needed her. That I knew, but how was that ever going to be possible? I couldn't do it, because she was vulnerable, fragile, and I wouldn't make her another of my mistakes.

I raised my head, and stared into my own two eyes again. The dark, blood red colour was like a deep water of blood,

Suddenly I heard her voice in my head, as I always did.

"_I love you!" _she said under her breath, and I heard my stupid voice reply; _"You do?" _I caught my breath just before I was about to cry out in pain from, and when I leaned myself with full power on one arm as I took the other up to my face, a loud "crack" appeared from the sink bellow me, and the entire object was ripped from the wall. I took a step back, and stood, looking down at the pieces of it, before I leaned my back against the wall on the different side of the room, and slid down so I ended up sitting on the floor. I pulled my legs up against my chest, and leaned my forehead on the left knee.

"_Of course I do!"_ Ginger's beautiful voice continued in my head. This scene I knew back and forth, it was sat on repeat inside my head, and I didn't know how to turn it off. I knew what I would answer, and I knew what she would say and how she would say it.

"I would always love you, baby," I whispered against my knee.

"_Where are you, my Benjamin?"_ My head snapped up, and my eyes fast scanned the room for anyone I probably hadn't heard coming in. There was no one here. I was alone. I had never heard her say this to me before. It caught me off guard. She sounded like she was in deep pain, and I felt panic appear inside of me. I didn't want her to feel pain, I wanted to scare all the fear away, and ease the pain she felt, the pain I could hear she felt just by the sound of her voice. It sounded so in despair, and I wanted to reach out for her. I was going nuts, I was sure of it, although that probably was established long ago; I didn't think any way of hearing voices in ones head was defined normal.

"I'm here, Ginny," I said a little hesitant. I didn't know if it worked this way. But the silence lasted, and my head was filled with it. It was weird how silence could be so deafening on occasion.

I wondered what she was doing, if she really did miss me, if she was in pain. What if she was? What if she needed me? I jumped on my feet, but then a layer of hopelessness was covering my hopes again. Because I knew she wasn't mine. I knew she didn't want me. And still if she did love me, I couldn't go to her. It was too dangerous.

Again I could hear her voice in my head, talking loudly to her brother the time long ago, defending me: _"No, Edward, I won't listen! You know what, brother? I. Don't. Care! I don't care what special ability he has that could be so dangerous for me. God damn it, Edward. I am a vampire! I'm not some porcelain doll. Would you please stop acting like I am one?"_ I wanted to see her, I wanted to hear her real voice in my ears, I wanted to hold her, to ease her, to kiss her, and feel her! Was that too much to ask? She said back then that she loved me, really loved me. No one spoke like that if it wasn't real feelings behind it. I remembered how her shouting was going through the house, that even I could hear it, sitting in her loft-room. I remembered our kiss as she said: _"make yourself at home"._ It was so confusing. I should've been with her, to love her. In stead I stood in front of a broken mirror in a motel somewhere.

Again I eyed my tattoo. The black eyes of the demon seemed to have a different expression every time I saw it. Maybe it was just I, fucking with my look as always, but I didn't think so. I sighed, and wished to God that he would never had blessed me with skills like the one I had. It was entirely its fault that I now stood alone in the darkness.

I blinked my eyes, and the tattoo was no longer on my shoulder, also all my scars were gone. My upper body was tight, slight muscles on my stomach and arms, my chest a little bit harder and fuller. It was creepy how real and perfect I could make myself look. It was low, as _she_ had told me, and I was disgusted with myself. How could I have been going on like that, after the death of Jessica? When I had spoken to Ginger about my past life I had carefully skipped the parts involving all the women I'd taken with the help of my power to change my appearance. Somehow I hadn't seen what was wrong about it before, as I had mostly attracted human girls, and then drained them for blood. It was like bait, a way to get food. That was all. Even now I could hear the excuses in my head. How pathetic I was.

I removed the illusion from my sight, and again stared at the tattoo. It was like it tried to tell me something. I stared at it intensely, and tried to make out what it all meant. I suddenly remembered my old master, the time when he prepared himself to tattoo me for the first time. I was eager, and he was annoyed with my impatientness. He had warned me about all the pain it would cost me, but never once tried to speak me out of it. I thought about how it could resemblance my situation now. The pain was there, cold and hard and unbearable, but no one had told me about it or warned me before it happened. I wish someone had, I wish someone would've told me how reckless and stupid this was. But then I realized I was mistaken. I recalled something Maria had once told me, the time when I was still her lapdog.

_I stood in front of her, straight and proud of being her newest captain, now that Jasper had run off. Saying his name in my head made me furious, and I could still feel the despite of him betraying us burn inside my veins._

"_Benjamin Colby," Maria said in a low and dangerous voice. She was just as furious as me, if not more, about Jaspers escape. She sat bend over some maps. The room was dark, but there was no reason for any light to be lit._

"_Yes, ma'am?" I said with my darkest voice, and made it even darker, so I would seem stronger and tougher. I was still new with this skill I had. Jasper had told me that it was usual for some vampires to be born with skills like the one I had, and I knew he himself had had one. _

_Maria looked up at me then, and a smile played about her lips for a second. She was beautiful, and I would do anything to be her mate. Imagine, having the leader of the strongest vampire army as a mate._

"_Don't call me that, Benjamin. Do I look like an old _ma'am_ to you?" her voice was playful, and she stood now, looking up at me. I was more than a head taller than her. No, she didn't look like a ma'am. She looked like a little girl, the way she stood now, her facial expression all kind and sweet. And I could feel the power in me willing to bend down and kiss those sweet lips. _

"_No…" I hesitated a little, not sure what to call her. Could I say only Maria? It sounded much too impolite while talking to a vampire of her rank and power. I didn't know if she had a last name. So I stood still, shut my mouth to a straight line on my face. She looked at me, and then stretched up to caress my cheek. She laughed lightly, and I felt the creeps down my back, because it sounded much too delighted to come from her._

"_I don't like seeing you with a look like that," she said absentmindedly, and I didn't think about nothing else than that she touched me. It seemed utterly dreamy and out of place, but I was young and dumb. "Have you been with many women?" she then asked suddenly, without embarrassment._

"_No, not many," I said plainly, and it was true._

"_Ah, well, that is good. Women bring nothing but pain and despair. Trust me."_

She had indeed warned me, but it didn't seem the kind of warning you took much seriously. Suddenly I remembered her too well, and a feeling of something tightening its grip around my throat appeared, and I had to bring my hand up to check if something was really there. Nothing held me, but I could still feel it. It was cold, hard, and left a fear in me I hadn't felt in a very long time. That was when I realized what I had to do. I looked at my reflection. What I now saw was a determined expression of a person about to do something he had been waiting for in a very long time.

I looked at it a second time, but it didn't change, and it smiled a smug smile, as I hit the mirror with my fist. A sound of broken glass was in the air a moment before I turned and walked out of the bathroom and into my room. I looked over some thing, wondering if it was worth bringing. But I found nothing, and I didn't care. I needed to go, now!

Before I turned to walk out the door, I thought about my brothers, and fetched a blank paper, and in a swift matter I wrote down enough for them to not fear for me. And I turned my back to the room, to my things, and walked out the door.

The piece of paper I had left on the bed, easily noticeable. It said:

"_I'm sorry. I'm leaving for some time. Don't go looking for me. I need to figure out my mind somewhere else. I realized my past is the key, and so I've gone to seek it. I don't know how long I'll be gone; as long as I need. Asia is a long way to run, but I know you understand._

_Thank you._

_B."_

12


	10. Hope

10.

A hope

GINNY:

_(2 years and 6 months after I'd let him go…)_

_Pathetic. Pathetic. You are so pathetic! Why don't you just go kill yourself, if this is how you are going to treat me, anyway? Is this how you are going to let me perish?_ It was painful and deafening listening to my own thoughts, and knowing it was what I actually thought and felt. It _was_ my fault. I _was_ pathetic. I _was_ weak. I _was_ alone, and I would never see him again. He was all I yarned for, all I wanted, all I needed. But he wasn't here, and I would never feel his hands on mine again, never feel those lips. It made me catch my breath in a desperate sob, so water filled my lungs. I shrieked so I could hear it deep in my ears, though no one else would. I did that a lot these days. Screaming without anyone hearing, crying without anyone seeing. It was harder to hide away my feelings now than before. Slowly, as the months had passed away, my yearn for him grew bigger and bigger. I couldn't maintain it; it was filled up inside of me, trying harder and harder every day to break free.

But I was so afraid; I was afraid if I met him again he wouldn't want me. I was afraid of loosing my family, and all those who loved me. Still, I couldn't seem to act like I wanted towards them. I wanted to look into the eyes of Alice and smile like I did once, I wanted to look at Emmett and smack his head, and I wanted to look at Edward and laugh with him as I did before. But nothing was as it had been, and I couldn't do anything about it. My face wouldn't allow me to smile anymore, even if I tried. It was useless. His face was there, always, inside my head, and I could feel the hole in my chest grasp harder every time I thought about him.

The damp sounds around me didn't blur my mind, as I always wished so hard for. What did I expect? It was almost as that day too long ago, when my thoughts were twisted around my old family. Slowly I opened my eyes, and the blue in the water hit my eyes gently, as a layer of light cloth covering my sight. I could see the movement the opening of my eyelids made in the water. It was beautiful. But nothing like his beauty. His perfect appearance wasn't comparable to anything.

I exhaled and let the water I'd filled my lungs with escape. This state, this hollow world of pain, it was confusing, annoying, painful and consuming at the same time. I let my arms rise from the hot water, grasped the edges of the tub, and I was ready to drag myself up from the wet hell around me. At some point I'd realized nothing would be what it once used to, and as that change ought to be hell, there wasn't much to do about it. It was indeed a living hell. Not being able to see him when I wanted, to hold him, kiss him…

I heaved myself up and away from the water. Thinking like that made my inside burn, and I clapped my hands over my breast and breathed unevenly. Water was pushed from my lungs, and flowed out of my mouth and over my chin. One would think I was used to the pain by now. But it didn't go away, it didn't ease. It never did.

I exhaled, and sat down on the edge of the tub, my arms wrapped around my waist. I caught a glimpse of me in the mirror on the other side of the white room decorated with tiles all the way around.

The girl in the mirror was pale, and her hair was wet and tangled around her face. Her face seemed whiter than the white in the room, and I wondered what was wrong with her. She looked fragile, the way she sat on the tub, her arms twisted around herself, and her eyes were deader than the cold mirror glaring back at her.

I took a deep breath. I was cold; my inside was ice, and I didn't know what to do about it. As I sat there, glaring at the me in the mirror, I knew this was how Edward saw me, and Alice, and Rosalie; all of them. This was why Edward's face was twisted in pain every time he looked at me, and why Alice felt the urge to hug me tightly all the time. But I remembered a different time; a time without Benjamin, a time when it had been only us, and that had been enough for me. But would I have to live without love for us all to be happy?

Damn him, and what he had brought with him. It was nothing but sorrow. No, that wasn't true. I remembered the time when I lay in his arms, my heart at piece, and my hands feeling his face. At that point I was happy. I was content. But with those feelings, increased the possibility of a broken heart. Cruel how no one had explained to me the terms before I'd made the contract.

It was bloody unfair. What vampire went through a breakdown because she was dumped? That was more like the love story of a 14-year-old girl with the biggest concern of how to wear her hair or do her makeup. I was a vampire, for crying out loud. Why did I feel like this?

I hid my face in my hands and tightened it while holding my fingers tight over my for-head. I was so pathetic.

"Ginger?" Edward's velvet voice was as always full of concern as he interrupted my thoughts. I was glad he could be spared for them, though. I cost him too much pain as it was.

Like usual I didn't answer and he knocked the door once, and then again. I didn't like that he used _that_ name. It wasn't my name anymore. It belonged to the girl who had been a freak, who had been proud and stubborn and happy even though things were complicated. _That_ girl was not me. I was sure he knew that by now, he wasn't stupid, but I couldn't see what motive he had of keep calling me that.

"Please, Ginger… Will you only speak to me?" His voice was at the edge of desperation, but he managed to control himself. He was good that way.

He knocked again, but as always I was silent. I had silently slid down from the edge of the tub, and now sat on the floor, pressing my knees to my chest; afraid I would burst into a sob again any minute.

"It's your birthday today. Do you remember? You're 32 years today…" he trailed off, and I heard a sigh before he walked away from the door. I lowered my head and leaned my for-head to my arm. It was true, and I hadn't forgot. In fact, that was why I'd gotten the idea of a bath. Last time I'd taken a bath my mother had turned years, and I'd missed her, as I did now. I didn't think I would ever stop missing my parents. How could I? They were my parents. But the sorrow for them weren't even half the sorrow I felt for Benjamin right now. I could feel the hole in my chest again, and it hurt so much.

"Ginny," it was Rosalie's calm voice this time. "Won't you come out? Please, at your birthday… can't you speak with us today?" Oh, yes, again all this about speaking to them. I hadn't realized it, but after some time I'd stopped talking to them. I only cried in their laps from time to time, mostly Rosalie's and Edward's, and I hadn't realized how much they worried for me because of this. It was only later that Edward told me how afraid he had been, how desperate. But I knew nothing of that now. Deep down I think I was only thinking of myself, too concentrated about my own pain to notice that everyone else was suffering with me. Selfish was the word.

I was silent, and she was silent, but she was more persistent than Edward, and after a moment of silence she pushed the doorknob down and stepped into the room. I wasn't embarrassed, even if I was naked. Those kinds of things did no longer matter. Rosalie silently sat down beside me, and placed her arm around my neck. She looked at me, and then leaned her head towards my shoulder.

"How did this happen?" I shook my head as a reply. I could feel the lump in my throat, and I wanted to cry so much. "It's your birthday… you should be happy…" I could hear her voice break at the last word. She was right, I should be happy, but I couldn't, because there was no reason for me to be happy. Another year had passed without him beside me, and I felt the guilt inside of me. I was so pathetic. Since when had I let a man control my life? But here I was, sad and alone, the arm of my sister wrapped around my neck, and I didn't think of this as my birthday. There was nothing worth celebrating. How could it be, that I was feeling this way on my birthday? It wasn't fair, not fair at all.

I wished I could take the feelings inside of me and lock them away so I would never need to feel them ever again. I had tried that, to lock away my feelings, and all that led to was just pain and more pain. I cursed myself for being so stupid, to think that that could possibly be the solution. The feelings inside of me couldn't be changed, and I had to deal with that, hopefully without hurting my family too much.

But what about now? Didn't I hurt everyone just as much as before? I knew I did, and still I couldn't say a word to them, because they just couldn't understand my sorrow. They couldn't. They didn't. I knew that.

But, oh, I wished I had never met him. God damn him, and this smile, his body, his arms, and his legs, his fingers. _I need you! How could you leave me?_ It would've saved us so much trouble. If he really did love me, why didn't he return to me? To save me from this deep, deep grief, this hell. Where was he?

And suddenly I knew what to do.

EDWARD:

_(Some seconds before…)_

I stood by the door. I could feel her in there. My breathing was hard, and I felt the urge to hold her in my arms and rock her until the pain eased away. But I knew that would never happen. That boy, I could rip off his head for doing this to her. How could he abandon her like this? I knew how much he'd loved her. Damn, I'd heard every single thought about her that night, and I knew that their love had been real. Why wouldn't he come back to take care of her? I hadn't felt this protective for anyone since the time when Bella was still human. She was my littlest sister, and seeing her like this… it was painful.

But I also felt a great shame. It was my fault she had made him go. If I hadn't been so stupid…

I knocked the door carefully.

"Ginger," I said calmly, but in my head I screamed for her to reply. I couldn't remember last time she spoke to me. What was she thinking? Didn't she think we cared for her? Or did she think she protected us by not speaking her mind? Anyway, it was stupid. How could she think not speaking to me would make anything better? It pretty much did the opposite. I needed her to speak to me, to tell me that she was okay. This silence was agonising, and I didn't know what to do.

"Please, Ginger… Will you only speak to me?" I tried to control my voice, to not let it reveal my desperation. But of course, the silence lasted, and I was just about smashing the door in with frustration. Why did she do this to me? I wanted nothing else than to talk to her, to take her pain away. Suddenly I remembered the night on the rooftop, when she'd told me about everything. How had that girl turned into this one? She was barely a shadow of her old self, and I didn't know how to bring her back. Though, slightly, an idea was starting to burn in my head.

I pushed my forehead to the door a long moment, waiting for something that I knew would never come. A long moment I stood like that, not ready to accept the facts. My fist hit the doorsill

"It's your birthday today. Do you remember? You're 32 years today…" I exclaimed slowly a big amount of air I had kept inside for quite some time now, and I backed up to leave her alone again. I knew she would never listen to me. As I turned around I looked into Rosalie's worried eyes. I touched her shoulder swift and walked down the hall to the stairs. I could feel her gaze at my back and the question in her head, but I had nothing to say to her right now. I knew she was a bigger comfort to Ginger than I was, and I knew it was wrong, but I envied her deeply and was irritated about it.

I knew I had to do something. I needed to go after him, to bring him back. But how? How could I convince him she was longing for him more than he was for her? I didn't know. But maybe there was someone else he would listen to, and in a second I stood behind Jasper, there he sat on the couch with Alice curled up in his lap. Her worried eyes pleaded for me to tell her that Ginger was better, that she was okay, but Alice knew she wasn't, and didn't need me to tell her so. Ever so, I felt the urge to comfort her.

"I'll make it go away, Alice," I assured her, and she squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head again. She looked even worse than Ginger, curled up like that. I sighed, because I couldn't make her feel better either, and I started to think about what a bad brother I was.

"Jasper, I have to talk to you," he turned around slowly and looked me straight in the eyes. His face was serious, and his thoughts were like mine.

"Yes," he said plainly, and carefully lifted Alice from his lap. He placed her on the couch. She grabbed a pillow and hugged it tightly to her chest like a teddy bear. Then he turned to me, and nodded seriously. "What do you have in mind, Edward?"

"We have to track him down," I growled. I had problems keeping my voice calm.

"I know," and I heard him in his head, saying it was the only thing we could do to help her. We _had_ to help her! It was right. And it was time. I threw my arms around his shoulders and thanked him silently. I was close to loosing hope. But this was what I'd been waiting for. Something to do. Something I could help her with; a hope!

RANY:

_(2 years and 8 months after he'd left her…)_

I was lying on the bed, looking up in the roof. The smell of young human blood stained the air, and I tried not to breathe in too much. I had other thoughts in my head, and wouldn't want to be disturbed. It was too troublesome to be distracted by blood, when I had already had my fair share last night. I was worried for my brother. I had always said that women were nothing but drama. Of course I was right, but it didn't change the fact that Minni, the youngest of my brothers, was haunted by one, and I couldn't do anything to help him. That he was even giving up on drinking was only another proof of that.

I hadn't seen depression like that since I was a human myself. I remember how it was when my father died in the war, and my mother slowly started to fade away, just like Benjamin now. I recognized that hollow gaze, that hopeless mock, and I shut my eyes tight. But Benjamin wouldn't end up like my mum. He was a vampire; still he would go mad if this craziness wasn't stopped.

"Rany?" Bjorn's voice was more troubled than I had ever heard it, which in itself was a reason to worry. I turned my head slowly, and looked at him. His face was dirty where he had wiped blood off it with his sleeve.

"What is it?" I turned my head away from him again, and sighed annoyed. That was pretty much the most impolite I had ever been to him, but for once I didn't care. I was much too worried about Minni.

"What should we do about Benjamin?" He asked, and it sounded as though he was completely serious, yet another reason to worry. I turned my head to look at him again, to catch a glimpse of his expression, to see if I wasn't mistaken. I wasn't. He looked honestly worried, and I started to wonder if there were more to his world than humour and fascinations. So far nothing had proved otherwise, but you never knew.

"I don't know," I sighed again, and rubbed my face with my left hand. "I lied to him yesterday, I said I only wanted him to drink the blood, but I need him to be happy too. God! If he wants to be like everyone else and have only one girl, why can't he just return to her, for Gods sake? What is the problem?" The last questions were only for me, but I spoke them out loud without noticing.

Bjorn looked at me with a couple of curious but serious eyes. I didn't know if I wanted to know what he was thinking about, so I didn't ask. His face was childish, and nothing usually seemed to worry him, so this sudden change confused me.

Suddenly the door opened, and I sat up in the bed. It was only Dai, and I shook my head fast, and looked away, as I had a second hoped it was Benjamin. Inside I hadn't had much hope of him returning to his own worry-free and relaxed self in the nearest future. He was too sensitive, and I'd ought to see this coming sooner or later. He wasn't the one he pretended to be. He wasn't like me. I guessed that was why he never told me about this Maria, or Jessica for that matter… that he had once had a wife, it seemed wrong inside my head. Why hadn't he told me that? Didn't he trust me? Damn, what an idiot he was! I was his brother, his partner in crime, and he didn't trust me enough to tell me personal stuff about himself? I didn't even know he'd been a part of those vampire wars a couple of centuries ago. A stranger, his former captain, knew him better than his brother, which he had been together with for more than a 100 years. What was he thinking?

I was older than him, smarter, more experienced, and he didn't trust me. Well, fuck him!

"You guys…" Dai started off in a strange set of tone, and I raised my head to look at him. His long, hair was for first time in months hanging loose by his shoulders, and in a quick, back-to-normal-moment I opened my mouth to ask what the occasion was, but the moment was gone before I got to. "Do you remember that family we visited some years ago?" My mind went back to that Cullen-family, and I humph-ed annoyed, thinking about Minni and that girl. I remembered being jealous of him tricking her into bed before I got the chance, but she wasn't my type. She was much too serious and innocent at the same time. Though I hadn't gotten any details from Minni afterwards, I knew she probably hadn't been too innocent. I hadn't ever seen him so happy and keen before. That was before the fight of course, before that idiot of a brother she had had told her about Minni. But to have such a skill. I'd always wondered what it would be like to read other peoples mind. But I was furious with him. It was his fault that all of this was now happening with my brother. I swore to God and Lucifer that I would personally rip his head off his shoulders if I ever saw him again.

"Yes, Dai," Bjorn started, carefully taking in my expression. "We have visitors, don't we?" Dai nodded his head slowly, but my head snapped up as I realized what that meant. I was off of the bed and on my way out the door before a fraction of a second had passed. Bjorn snapped something at me, but I hadn't enough control to make out what he said. Once the door was opened and I could see the half full moon over me, I saw the three men standing in front of the motel, leaning on a car. I wasn't interested in cars the way Minni and Bjorn were, so I didn't care to check what kind. My mind was fixed in on one thing; the face of one of the men, he was her brother, the mind reader, Edward. I could hear a growl build up deep inside of me, and heaved myself on the boy. He was indeed the youngest in appearance, but I didn't care.

Edward saw me coming and quickly stepped out of my way, at the same time his other brother, the big one, Emmett I believed, stepped into his place and even though I was stronger than all of the guys in my clan, he was stronger than me, and harder. He grabbed me, and threw me a couple of meter away from them.

"Please, we've come to talk!" Edward said. But I wasn't and wouldn't control myself right now. I was furious.

I got up and was in front of him before he got to catch his breath. My fist smashed into his centre, and he flew backwards and knocked a tree over. Then that guy with blonde hair, Jasper, that Minni had known from before was in front of me, and before I knew what hit me I was laying on the ground with him over me, squeezing my throat in his hand.

"Be calm," he said. And like something had put out the fire in me, I was no longer angry. It was annoying, and I bet that was his skill, to control other peoples emotions, like the way Minni could make girls fall in love with him. For the first time I was annoyed of not having a skill of my own.

"Rany!" Bjorn grabbed me by my neck and lifted me up. The boy with the blonde hair stepped away, and I could see on his face he was disgusted, like I was some loose newborn vampire. Damn, I was probably older than him. I wanted to attack him again, but didn't.

"I apologize," Bjorn said and loosened the grip on my neck, and stroke it gently. I guessed it was meant for them, not me.

"It's okay," Edward assured us. Again I could feel the burn of knowing that he was the reason for my brother's pain. It was almost enough to make me attack him again.

"What do you want?" I growled in stead, my eyes locked on Edward's smooth and childish face. He was 17-18 years old. But the age didn't matter. It was a bad habit. I always made out what age the vampire was when I met one. It also interested me how long they had been vampires, but this was not the moment.

"As I said, we need to talk."

"Why should we talk to you?" I tightened my lips into a straight line and my jaw was locked together hard. "Do you have any idea what you have done to my brother?" I couldn't help but scream at him, and again I could feel a curtain close off the anger inside of me. My eyes snapped to the hard face of Jasper, and I wished he would stop doing that. I shook my head fast, as if it would shake it off. It didn't, of course. "Would you mind?" I said, perfectly normal to him. "Get out of my head," I said again, this time it even sounded jolly.

Edward didn't seem to get distracted by his brother, and I wondered if I was the only one he was controlling. This would've made me angry, hadn't he kind of controlled my emotions, of course.

"I know," ah, of course he did. He read my mind. That was correct. _Then see what I see,_ I growled inside my head. I found the image of Benjamins twisted face when he'd eyed the blood in the cup I'd held. _"That girl… Rany, I can't live without her!"_ I had to breath hard only thinking about how small and hopeless he'd been when he said this. I was so angry, and so sad, and so desperate. I wouldn't allow my brother to feel this way. _Do you see?_ I said in my head, my thoughts calm, of my won free will this time.

In front of me Edward nodded and lowered his head. "I see," he said, his voice pained like this was his brother. But then I wondered; maybe Benjamin wasn't the only one in pain. Maybe that girl suffered just as much.

"Yes, you should be glad!" Edward suddenly snapped, and I somehow knew it was a reply to my thoughts. His brothers looked at him, surprised. "At least he talks to you!" And when he then looked at me… I hadn't ever seen a sad mock like the one he made. He looked horrible, like he was about to cry his heart out. "I _know_ it's my fault! I know it, and I will do anything to make it right! Okay?" His lips were pursed as though he was trying to keep them shut, instead of screaming out loud. His eyes flickered and I started to feel my own desperation in his expression. The only difference was that I only knew how to express my desperation through anger, rather than sadness the way Edward did. I couldn't blame him.

"So, as you understand, we need to bring the two of them together again. There's nothing to gain by going on like this," Jasper spoke with a serious tone, and we knew that he was right.

I nodded. It was the only right thing to do. I turned around and stepped onto the porch of Minnis room. I knocked three times, and waited, but I couldn't hear or sense anything in there. This caught me off guard, and I knocked in the door. I stood frozen in the opening for a minute, numb struck, searching the room with my eyes. My senses worked against each other to find him first, but the only problem was that he wasn't here.

"Bjorn?" I asked calmly, searching my mind this time, for a sound, for anything.

"Yes, Rany?"

"He's not here," I said again. The steadiness of my voice surprised me. My mind on the other hand was panicing. Where was he?

I walked into the room, and the first thing my eyes caught was a little, white piece of paper folded and placed on the bed. I grabbed it and read it fast. It wasn't before I read, "I'm leaving for some time" that I slowly started to realize he was gone. _How could he?_ Was the first thing that went through my mind, but I understood why he did it.

"What?" Edward snapped and was suddenly by my shoulder. I handed him the paper discreetly without offering him a glance. He grabbed it and stared at it, as if his eyes could shoot flames and wanted to burn the paper to dust.

I was still, finally realizing everything. He had left. He had left to figure things out. It was my advice, how stupid I was, and he had followed through with it. Idiot! But how could he leave me? How could he leave me behind? Even without telling me…

"Edward!" It was the voice of the blonde, of Jasper. Edward's head snapped up, and he was suddenly out the door. I followed to see what was going on. And there she was, the dark beauty, which had caught both Minni's attention and mine. She looked like Minni; tired and miserable. It was partly a relief that she hadn't moved on, that it was still time for him to go back to her. But what was she doing here?

"You," she said, her voice hard, but beautiful. He eyes smouldering in on mine. I was almost ready to take a step back. She frightened me!


End file.
